Chapter Thirty-One - Casanova Howitzer

"We often underestimate the Antithesis, claiming that they are merely bugs, or idiotic plants. What we don't realise, what we terrestrial beings have a hard time even conceptualising, is that these plants evolve at a rate that is impossibly fast, and in that evolution, they discover things that we've never even considered.

And then they remember them."

--Except from Antithesis: A Biologist's Perspective by Dr. Gene Pool, 2045

***

Delilah was on a treadmill when we found her. She'd probably seen us coming, what with the machine facing a wall covered in a floor-to-ceiling mirror from one end to another.

We'd gotten a few looks as we came in, but no one approached. The gym's ironically-overweight employee behind the counter was too cowed by the presence of two samurai armed to the teeth, and I supposed Rac as well.

"I've been getting non-stop shit," Rac muttered.

"Huh?" I asked.

She made the universal 'hand waving before face' gesture of someone talking about their augs. "Ever since we walked in, I've been getting ads and requests for stuff. I think I now have a life-time membership for the gym?"

"That sounds expensive," I said.

"I know! And I can't figure out how to cancel it. I think it's a subscription to the gym's advertising service, not even the gym itself."

"Yeah, gyms can be like that," Sam-O-Ray said. "They can be nice places too, though! Never liked the more business-y ones."

Give me a moment. I'm feeling a little sorry for poor Racoon.

"Oh," Rac said a moment later before blinking. "I guess they stopped?"

"Or someone took pity on you," I said with a smirk.

Gomorrah hadn't stopped jogging even when we got within talking range. "Hello Cat, Rac... Sam-O-Ray, was it?" she asked between pants.

"That's me, sister," he said with a grin. Then the big guy slipped his boots off and hopped onto the machine next to Delilah

Rac, seeing what was about to happen before I did, took the machine on Delilah's other side, which left me standing there for a moment. "Oh, fine," I muttered before getting onto the one on Rac's other side. I was now far from Sam-O-Ray, which wasn't going to be helpful for any chatting, but whatever. I stabbed the start button, then wobbled for a moment as the mill started treading, or whatever.

"So, what's gotten you to come over here?" Delilah asked. She was looking at me through the mirror.

"One sec. Before that, we should think privacy. At least a little. I know this will get out, but we can at least make a token effort to keep it under wraps."

"Sure," she said. "Atyacus... thank you. My AI should be covering things for us."

I'll go and make sure he actually does a good job of it.

"Thanks," I said. Was Myalis Atyacus' rival or something? I didn't get that mood from her before. Or was it more of a mentor kind of situation? Or... nagging older sister? Actually, yeah, that last one sounded about right. I licked my lips and took a peek at the speedometer on Delilah's machine, then matched it with mine. "Is this place safe?" I asked.

"More or less," she said. "I have Atyacus hooked into all of the security around here, and I have a gun on me." She tapped her front which had... a fanny pack. There was a water bottle there too, which seemed like it would be annoying to jog with unless you did so with perfect posture.

Delilah was... not looking so hot right now. Not as if she looked sick, it was just... I was used to seeing her put together properly and she was definitely a nine outta ten woman. But now she had her hair in a sloppy pony-tail, was wearing a loose t-shirt, and her pants were the ugliest, greyest sweatpants I'd seen in a while.

"So, are you going to tell me what's going on?" she asked.

"Yeah, so, you know how we're all gonna die if no one does anything about Phobos?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"As it turns out, no one is planning on doing anything."

Delilah didn't react too much except to frown faintly and adjust her step mid-jog. "The Family doesn't have a plan?"

"As far as I can tell their plan is to use this to gain as much political capital as possible."

"That makes sense," she said and it was my turn to make a double-take. In what world did that make sense? "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get some serious concessions out of people."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"People who will all be dead shortly," I pointed out.

"They probably accounted for a samurai somewhere doing something about Phobos. I'm assuming that we're trying to find someone experienced enough to help?"

"Fuck that, we're blowing up the moon ourselves," I said. "I don't feel like trusting others to do what needs doing anymore."

"Cat, do we have anything that can blow up a moon?" Delilah asked.

"We have nukes."

"We don't have nukes that are large enough," she said. "Though I suppose we can just sink the points to get them."

"Grasshopper mentioned something called a Casanova Howitzer, it sounded awesome."

"Grasshopper is helping? Also, Casaba Howitzer. We're not romancing Phobos with artillery," she said. "If Grasshopper is helping, there's a chance this might not be a complete waste of effort. I'm assuming you're here to help too?" The last was aimed at Sam-O-Ray.

"That I am," he said. He was running all-out, which looked very strange with all of his armour on and just his feet sticking out of the bottom. "I trust Stray Cat, and Grasshopper, and now you!"

"You trust easily," Delilah said with a shake of her head. "So, what actually is your plan?"

"Big gun," I said. Not so much because I wanted to be short, but because I didn't want her to notice how full sentences would be complicated now that my heart-rate was elevated enough from all the jogging.

Delilah blinked. "A big gun? I... suppose that could work? Are we talking orbital or set on the ground?"

"I think on the ground," Sam-O-Ray said. "Though we could do orbital as well. The issue would be loading it up in orbit unless we can fly up there too."

"If it's just low Earth orbit, then it's almost not worth it," Delilah said. "The difference in gravity is negligible, and the only real advantage would come from avoiding the atmosphere, which probably won't be that much of an issue if we're firing a gun capable of reaching Phobos out in space."

"Hell yeah," I agree. "Big big gun."

"We're going to have to fire more than just bullets. We need something that can maneuver in space. Something like a smart-bullet made large. I've been looking into some reports about Phobos. The way it moves isn't normal at all. It's not accelerating anymore, at least, but it was for a while without any of the more... traditional methods to move in space. We can at least burn off its wings."

"It's wings?" Rac asked.

Yeah, I was a little stumped by that one too. What wings?

"Did you not see?" Delilah asked. "I suppose it's still classified. Here."

I got a ping on my augs. Some high-definition images that I opened up before me. There were three images, and they were a few hundred gigabytes each. It looked like someone had co-opted a fancy space telescope and pointed it at Phobos which... yeah, that wasn't actually surprising at all.

The images were still a little fuzzy, and I figured that was because space was big.

Phobos, on my first real look at it, wasn't all that impressive. It was a large, misshapen rock, more of a bean than a moon. It was more or less pointed narrow-end towards Earth, so it looked like we were getting a top-down view on the moon.

And yet the wings were still clearly visible. Two... no, four large sail-like things, all of them originating from spots on opposite ends of the moon. They looked relatively small in comparison to the rest of the moon. Kind of like how a bee's wings were stubby compared to the rest of it.

And yet they had to be enormous. "I need a scale," I said.

One moment... that should help.

A squinted, then zoomed in on the image. There were city buses lined up along the length of the wing. Had Myalis used buses instead of giving me a measurement in metres? I wanted to complain, but it was actually a lot easier to make out the size of them this way than just giving me an arbitrary number that I'd have to wrap my head around.

"Two hundred and forty-two buses long," I said. "Those are big fucking wings."

"Buses?" Delilah asked. "But yes, they're large. And warm, too. They're generating more heat than the rest of the moon's surface combined. The surface of those wings are hot enough to boil water."

"Is that how it's moving?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Delilah admitted. "Something tells me that burning those off wouldn't be a bad idea, however."

"Let's start with that, then."

***