"Officially, the state languages of Scania is both Danish and Swedish. Unofficially, most have adopted a pidgin of the two languages referred to as Scanian, that does away with the worst sins of both. It's origins are hard to trace, but one theory was it started when Danish speakers adopted the simpler and more logical Swedish number system, and..."
--"Scanian, a modern language study", Introduction
***
Red Knight looked at the hole in Katherine's armour and belly, looked up at Katherine, then turned and handed me the Nano-Regenerative Suite that appeared in his hand.
"Give her this. I trust you know how it works?"
"Y-yeah. I've used a few."
He nodded, then turned back to inspect her armour.
I moved over towards Katherine's exposed head, and knelt down beside her.
"Seems we get to fuss over you, with you stuck in your clumsy armour." I said with a smile.
"I could handle that thing. I have a perfectly good hand, you know."
"Open up." I said.
"And there's an emergency release, if I need to get out quickly. It's just a bit of a pain to put the armour back together afterwar-" She was rambling a bit.
I stuffed the inhaler into her mouth.
She shot me a look, then looked away and started to breathe in, so I pressed the button.
She immediately started to regain some colour in her cheeks.
Red Knight, meanwhile, had summoned in a tube that looked rather like the WoundStop, and was applying some sort of black goop to the damaged parts of Katherine's armour, including filling in the rather large hole in it.
The Hive, meanwhile, was still trying to defend itself, but the models it was producing looked sickly and half-formed. I stabbed them as they appeared from their pods. I also kept an eye out in all the tunnels leading to us, and caught a Model Three sneaking our way, which I also stung.
Katherine was looking a good deal better, and though her armour looked a splotchy mess, Red Knight still seemed to nod in satisfaction as he got up.
"That should reinforce and fix your armour over the course of an hour or so. Meanwhile, don't go poking at anything nasty. Again." He admonished her.
"But-" Katherine began.
"Thank you, Katherine." I interrupted her, shooting Red Knight a glare that he couldn't possibly see through my helmet. "Thank you for keeping that thing away from me. I'm not sure there would have been anything left of me if you hadn't."
"'S nothing." She said and blushed adorably.
"Where's my thanks?" Red Knight protested. "I held up three of them, and-"
"Shush you." I glared at him again.
"This is totally unfair. Whatever, we still have a Hive to dispose of, and a city to clear out." He said. He turned to go back towards the Hive.
I instinctively reached out to help Katherine up, then reconsidered. She noticed and shot me a cheeky grin.
"Thanks, but I've got this." She said and levered up to standing in a way that looked totally impossible. Power armour was cheating.
She shot me a final smile, then sealed her helmet up and herded me ahead of her down the tunnel. Seems like she wasn't done playing rearguard.
"So, how are we going to take care of the Hive?" I asked. I wasn't too keen on the idea of explosions in enclosed spaces.
"We'll just do a botch-job and leave it to the cleanup crew." Red Knight said. "Got any shaped disintegrator mines, Titanite?"
"Sure. Come back here and let me have a look."
Red Knight complied, jogging all the way back to us before Titanite left for the Hive some fifty meters ahead. Was she being protective? Regardless, she poked around in there for a bit, before attaching a spherical metal object to a Hive trunk near the centre of the large room, then moving back towards us.
"Make sure your drones are clear, Hornet." She said.
I nodded at her, having already done so. "I'm good."
"Okay. Fire in the hole."
An not-explosion whumpfed, sucking us in a step and disintegrating most of the Hive.
Then Red Knight summoned in a large canister with an attached hose and nozzle, and went to work. He first went and sealed up the other two tunnels by spraying some sort of yellowish goop that quickly expanded and filled up the space, stepped around the perimeter of the large Hive room, occasionally spraying, then moved to the centre of the room and summoned in another large canister, before jogging back to us and sealing up the tunnel in front of us.
"In enclosed spaces, flesh eaters are pretty effective. Just gotta make sure you catch all the vents and things. The sealant goop dries hard in minutes and lasts a few hours before it starts to decompose. Useful stuff, can recommend." Red Knight commented, then dropped the canister.
I nodded, surprised by his workmanlike attitude.
"Okay, lets get back out of here. Good work, you two, that would have been a lot trickier on my own." He said.
I walked a little straighter at his praise.
We headed back out and I collected my swarm back to me before we entered Red Knights IFV.
"We'll take a break for a while before we head back in." Red Knight said.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
We then took off and flew through deserted streets towards the militarized zone we'd passed before.
[You have have enough points for another thirteen Yellowjackets. Do you want me to continue buying them for you?]
Yes please. I'll need all the drones I can get.
New Purchase: Class II Yellowjacket Mk 4 Warfare Drone x13 - 1170 points
Points reduced to... 573
I added them to my swarm, then idly stroked one of them on the wings.
As we passed the barricades, the military people below waved and cheered. We flew for a while longer, until we landed next to what looked like a massively oversized truck in the middle of a hive of military activity. The pin on the local military map had this labelled as 'Mid Gdansk HQ #2'. We stepped out of the parked IFV, and Red Knight led the way towards the oversized truck. Seriously, it had wheels taller than I was. Regardless, at the back there was a ramp, and as we stepped onto it, the two guard-like people guarding it saluted. I followed Red Knights lead and nodded in return. We were greeted at the top of the ramp by a man who looked slightly less ready for combat, who also saluted us.
"
"" Red Knight replied in something rather more embarrassing and haltingly english-like.
I poked him over our comm channel, having my helmet muffle my voice to the outside. "Would you like me to translate for you?" I asked him in Scanian.
"Oh gods, yes please." He quickly replied in the same way.
Lieutenant Wojska just nodded and led the way further into the truck-thing, past a number of stations with people sitting in mesh-chars and in front of lower tech maps and screens, and towards a stair at the back. Titanite had a bit of trouble squeezing through, but managed. At the top of the stairs, we found a room with a large holomap projector, with a handful of what I judged to be important people by the number of medals and stars on them.
They saluted us as we approached, and we saluted them back, again taking my cue from Red Knight.
"Start by introducing us." He said.
"" I began. " " I gestured at them, "
"
"Short description of our actions, including Hive." Red Knight prompted me.
"
""
I looked at Red Knight.
"Take a short break, then head to next hot spot. Suggestions welcome." He said to me.
I turned back to the man in the cap. "
The man nodded with an expression on his face like this was the first sensible thing he'd heard all week. "
"
"
The man in the cap considered this for a second. "
"
A ping in my augs notified me that I'd gotten a message. It was a location, and a map with a route highlighted, presumably the convoys path to the shelters and back.
Red Knight nodded, then turned to leave. I followed, and Titanite moved after me.
"Ugh, why can't these people just speak Scanian like civilized people." Red Knight groused under his breath.
I patted him on the shoulder.
We went back outside and stopped near the IFV, facing each other.
"So, we have an hour. I'd suggest a meal and a stretch and such, but you do whatever you feel like you need." Red Knight said.
"Eating sounds good. Mind if I sit in your truck? I'd prefer some privacy." Titanite asked.
"Sure. I'll be out here." He replied.
"I'll join you." I said to Titanite.
"Great! I mean, that's good." She said, then coughed. "Anyway, let's go. Dinner is on me."
We entered the IFV and sat down next to each other in the front. I closed the door after us, then popped off my helmet.
"It's amazing that it never gets stuffy in there." I commented.
Katherine followed suit, and looked at me. "I know, right? I've been in this suit for six or seven hours now, and I still feel great. Well, apart from being hungry."
I looked at her, a bit worried. "Are you sure you should be eating so soon after your injury?"
She grimaced. "Maybe not. What do you say, Iryn?"
I paused, but nothing followed. I guess this was how others felt when I spoke to Eyon out loud.
"I am not allowed hot or spicy foods, apparently, but I can eat." Katherine said with distaste. "Well, give me two of whatever I can have, please." She shot me a concerned look. "If that's alright? Would you prefer something hot?"
I laughed. "No no, I'm sure it's fine. I haven't had any Valkyrie food yet that was anything but amazing."
"Good."
Two meals appeared in our hands, mine in a bowl with a spoon, the Katherine's in a sort of tall sippy cup. It looked like a red soup of some kind, from the smell of it made of tomatoes.
Katherine looked at the sippy cup in her oversized power armour hand, then blushed furiously. It had little cartoon bears on it, and looked rather cute. The juxtaposition was a bit silly. I stifled a giggle.
"Next power armour I get has two hands." She stated darkly, before bringing the sippy cup up to her face and taking a sip.
I couldn't hold it back anymore. I giggled. I could feel the stress melt away as I had a giggle-fit. I had to put the soup down on the floor to not spill it everywhere, then giggled some more. Beside me, Katherine was still flushed, but she was chuckling along. Then she took another sip, and it set me off again even worse.
Eventually, many sips and fits later, I settled down with only a few after tremors, and I could finally pick up my soup again. Good thing it was meant to be eaten cold.
"Thank you." I said after a while.
"You're welcome... but, what for?" She asked a bit puzzled.
"I needed that laugh. I was so scared, you know. Just absolutely terrified. You, lying there, bleeding all over with a great big hole in you. I was so scared I'd found another corpse. Another one I'd failed." My eyes fell on the splodge on her armour where the hole had been. It looked fine now, but...
"Sylvi..."
"I know. I know they weren't my fault. And I know you aren't exactly mine to protect, but it still felt like my fault, somehow." I sighed. "I'm not sure I'm cut out for this Valkyrie business."
"Sylvi. No. On the contrary, you're excellent. Absolutely magnificent. You helped so many people today, just loads of them. Do you know how long it would have taken me to clear out even half the streets we cleared today, find even some of the problems you found and fixed? You're doing so good."
A message flashed up in my augs and blinked there for a while.
People saved: 314
What?
"Meanwhile I'm just a big dumb lump who can't even do the one thing she tried to do, can't even keep herself safe." She continued bitterly.
I stared at her dumbly.
"But... I could never have kept that school shelter safe without you. Or handled that Thirteen." I grabbed for her hand, and found myself holding a cannon. I looked at it for a moment, then mentally shrugged and went with it.
"Look, if I find the trouble and you deal with it, that sounds like a pretty good split to me. And you can surely get some better armour now, something that'll shrug off those Thirteens like Red Knight does. How about you talk to him about those plates of light he keeps summoning somehow? And tell me about it if you find out, because I could use some of those."
[He achieves those using Hard Light Emitter in...]
Not now! I interrupted Eyon's lecture.
"Only if you stop this nonsense about not being a good Valkyrie, Sylvi. I mean it, you're amazing." She looked me in the eyes and blushed but refused to look away.
"Okay, that sounds like a deal to me." I said with a smile.
I let go of Katherine's cannon and went back to my soup.
[Can I continue now?]