Chapter Sixty - Religious Exemption

"While it isn't the opinion of this author that removing governmental religious exemptions was one of the leading contributors to the fall of Old America, one must admit that the changes to the laws that gave religious organisations the ability to not pay taxes did coincide with other massive changes in the cultural and economic state of the Western world.

However, I posit that the Corporate Tax Exemption--the laws allowing sufficiently large corporate entities to avoid taxation outright--was a far greater harbinger of the end of the Old American way."

--Doctor C. Thumbs thesis on the Fall of Old America, 2046

***

"Okay, can everyone hear me?" I asked.

"Mhm!" Grasshopper said.

"You woke me up for this," Gomorrah replied.

"Ah, yes?" came Tanket.

"Affirmative," Hedgehog said.

"Howdy there," Crackshot said.

"We can both hear you here!" Princess said.

And I didn't need to glance over to Gros Baton next to me to know that he could hear me, even if he was still distracted by the last of his poutine. "Okay!" I said. "First, uh, sorry for waking you up or whatever."

"I don't mind," Princess said.

I went on right past that. "But yeah, big news! Phobos isn't out of the race just yet, but it sure as shit ain't looking good." The monitor showed us the moon in all of its fucked up glory. Honestly, calling it a moon now was a lie. Phobos had given up the pretence of being a lost space rock and was just a fuck-big alien hive now with large chunks of moon being held around it like million-ton shields.

Keiretsu drones were swarming around Phobos, and more of them were arriving every twenty minutes or so. Not to say that there weren't any losses. Space around Phobos was also swarming with aliens. Little fliers zipping around, lumps of twitching alien matter, and a disturbing number of what looked like very organic 'spitting' guns that were knocking out drones as they flew by.

Even as I looked, a small chain of itty-bitty explosions ran across one of the bigger tentacles. They seemed tiny on the monitor, but I imagined that each one of those explosions was big enough to take out a house.

We'd given Phobos a brown eye and knocked a few teeth loose, but that fucker was still coming. "Alright, so, time for an update," I said.

"Go on, we're listening," Grasshopper said.

"The Tesla Collider went off right after we hit Phobos with a new type of round, and the moon kinda... exploded. Now it's a big tentacle-y mess. The Keirestsu drones are messing it up as we speak. Since the innards are exposed, that means a lot of damage is being done directly to the hive."

"Is it over then?" Gomorrah asked. "Or nearly over?"

"I don't think so. We've ripped off a full third of the moon, but that still leaves a neat fuckton of moon behind," I said. "And we've got new problems to worry about."

"Oh boy," Princess said.

"Yeah. So, Phobos didn't seem happy about what we did to it, so it looks like the moon has flung shit our way. Here, I've got some imaging of the crap courtesy of our friends with all the drones. Since the Phobos... swarm is basically flying past the Keiretsu drone swarm, we're getting some pretty good images. I think our AI can pretty much pinpoint exactly where everything is going."

I shot an image onto the main screen, then fiddled with the attachment thing in our chat for a moment before figuring out how to send the same to the others.

Our buddies were sending non-stop drones at this point. I think they were producing them at some stupid rate. Something like one new drone every five minutes or so. Maybe less. They were launching soon after being built. So that meant that there was a string of drones only a few minutes apart from Phobos to Earth.

All of those had cameras and sensors on them, and long-ish ranged laser guns.

They were intercepting the Phobos swarm, firing off into the heap as they shot by, then letting the next drone do the same.

"That's a lot of aliens," Grasshopper said. "Far less than an incursion, however."

"Is it?" Crackshot asked.

"Mhm!" Grasshopper replied. "I recall Stray Cat being in New Montreal during the last incursion there? Did you see it in person?"

"Yeah," I said. I could distinctly remember the sky far above opening and aliens pouring out of the rifts by the thousands. "It's not something I'm going to forget so easily. Not anytime soon. But uh, care to explain what you mean anyway?"

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Of course. From what I can see here, this swarm is mostly made up for perhaps four or five different models, most of them third tier and below, though they're variants capable of space-flight. A normal incursion comes down with plenty more than this. And there's a wider range of models, usually with a focus on models that can make landfall and immediately start building a hive. There are scouts and... for lack of a better term, construction models. The goal of an incursion, insofar as there is a goal we can understand, is to create a beachhead."

"And this is different?" Gomorrah asked.

"It does seem different," Hedgehog said. "This isn't an incursion, it's an offensive."

"Yeah," I said. "No, here's the tricky bit."

I ran time forwards in the recording thing. It was all predictions from here, but they'd been made by the Nightwatchmen, and I trusted them to be pretty good about these.

The swarm moved towards Earth, then split lightly. One large chunk went right at the Keitestsu's orbital drone factory, another towards the Teslacollider, and the third, largest group, charged right past and came crashing down towards Earth. Specifically around North America. Even more specifically, towards the eastern end of North America."

"Oh, that's, uh, right on us, isn't it?" Princess asked. "I was never good at geography, but I'm pretty sure that's here."

"Yup," I said, popping the 'p.' "I don't know how, but they know that we're here, and they're coming to mess us up."

"What's their ETA?" Hedgehog asked. He sounded a lot more alert now than when this started.

"We've got a day," I said. "They're still accelerating. I've got no idea how they'll manage to survive hitting Earth's atmosphere, but I figure if they can pinpoint our location then they've probably got a few tricks to not just burn up and land as a heap of ashes."

"This is rather distressing," Gomorrah said. "What's our next step, then?"

"The fuck would I know?" I asked. "I'm just delivering the bad news."

"You've had longer to think about it," she returned. "And I think we mostly trust your opinion... to a limited degree."

"Well thanks for the vote of confidence," I said before I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose. I had a stress headache coming on. "Look... we've been handling Phobos on our own. I mean, for our region, at least. The Big Gun's done what it needed to. We can keep on shooting at Phobos until it's right on our doorstep because each shot peels a little more away and helps some. But this attack right on top of us? Yeah, I don't see why that needs to be our problem alone."

"You think we should get outside help?" Crackshot asked. "I'm sure some locals won't mind helping. Emoscythe would certainly help."

"Her, and anyone else that's willing to help at all," I said. "There are a few others around New Montreal, yeah? Hell, there should be a lot of others around here. We can get some from elsewhere in too. The global incursion is calming down, isn't it?"

"We'll have to involve the Family," Gomorrah said warningly.

"Well, tell them that if they don't help they'll have to rebrand themselves into the Orphanage, because there won't be enough survivors to call themselves a Family of anything," I said.

Gomorrah chuckled darkly. "I'll talk to them, then."

"I know just about every samurai that lives around here," Grasshopper said. "I make a point of making contact with as many as I can, in case they need help. I can start sending little 'hellos' to all of them, just in case."

"That'd be nice," I said with a nod. "What else? Maybe... ah fuck, we're going to need to put out a call on social media for anyone willing to help. And to warn people to keep their heads low for the next couple of days."

"Not it," Princess said.

"Same," Craskshot said.

"Pas moi," Gros Baton added.

"I'm not suited for that," Hedgehog said at the same time as Gomorrah said, "No."

"Ah..." Tankette said as she was caught out. "I don't know..."

"That leaves Cat," Gomorrah said.

I blinked. "No it the fuck does not," I snapped.

"Tankette can help you, I'm sure."

"Aren't nuns supposed to be kind and helpful?" I asked.

She was quiet for a few seconds. "My religion demands that I abstain from social media?"

"No it doesn't! You bitch!" I snapped.

But it was too late, wasn't it? That stress headache wasn't going to disappear after all.

***