Interlude 13: Enforcers 3

  Gary might have been just a tiny bit scared…

  He didn’t spend his time just training, like his colleagues, no, he’d been studying. Battle tactics for large engagements, antithesis responses, samurai tactics, the whole nine yards!

  Mostly, he needed to broaden his horizons on that front because, well, they had a samurai, and the enforcers were equipped as well as some very low-tier ones! It would only become more pronounced as time went by, so better to prepare, right?

  In this case, they didn’t come to this place to defend against the xenos, no, they came to eliminate a hive, as a big army!

  And Panda didn’t just put him in command of the militia, but also overall command if he couldn’t talk… “Fuuuuuuck…” Right now, the ground in the center kept blackening, which had to mean insane heat, right? He just got an order to deploy the militia, and he had to decide how to do that in detail, shit shit shit shit!

  You’ll do well, Gary. Do not worry so much. Simply focus on doing your best with what you have.

  He took a quick, deep breath. He’d already made the call to have everyone disembark, but they still had to deploy effectively. He could do this, the boss believed in him, hell, even Altany sounded more confident in him than he felt!

  “The best with what I got… Yeah, I can do that, thanks Altany.” He closed his eyes, breathed in, count to three, breathed out, then opened his eyes. Not the ones on his head, no, those in the sky. From all his studies, he’d figured out a few things.

  First, the medieval idea of walls as a defense lost any meaning a long time ago. Hell, static defenses were barely relevant these days. Sure, against smaller models or in large-scale engagements, then maybe it could work, but even then they only worked against very specific models.

  The modern way defenses worked? Against humans, making the way in too fucking deadly to move forward. Against the antithesis? Just kill everything before they can make it to what you want to defend. Alternatively, mobile defenses going towards a killbox, dead end or death-trap. You could also make them chase you somewhere else, someplace not important that you could be extracted from easily.

  “Fireteam one through twelve, head for the towers I’m marking, get on the second floors, deploy those turrets on the first! Thirteen through twenty-four, get between them, aim for the center, prep a defensive position, those fuckers are coming from there. Eyes all around, and if you’ll be overwhelmed, leapfrog up the nearest tower. Everyone covers the lower fireteam while they head up, then you do the same in case of retreat. Your friends will be counting on you, don’t fuck them over. No matter what, we'll pick you up or die trying, understood?”

  A thrill went down his spine at all the people acknowledging his orders, and not a good one. He’d meant it when he said he’d ‘pick ‘em up or die trying’. Enforcers or not, the militia were all Bear-Yakuza, his people, he couldn’t fathom letting them down…

  Wait, was this how Panda felt all the time!? How the fuck did he keep breathing with all this fucking pressure!? How the fuck could someone function like that in an engagement!?

  He got his answer when, only a few minutes later, Panda came out of the hole! On the nose of a model fourteen… “All HFUGs, open fire at the center! Steepest angle you can, ground penetrators!” All his worries fell away. Every anxiety and shit stopped mattering. “Enforcers in position?” He got acknowledgements. “Open fire!”

  He had a fight on his hands, who gave a fuck about anything else?

  ***

  Well, Gary was coming into his own! Lila looked at the militia fireteam slightly behind her. They’d be good support! Most sported those fabricated guns, but she saw a few looted rifles as well, high caliber things that would be hard to fire but would definitely put the plant fuckers down. Hell, one had a modified AR-15 shooting .50 Beowulf!

  She snorted inside her helmet. “Mine’s bigger.” Of course, she made sure the woman with that gun couldn’t hear, it’d just be a dick move.

  The phallic reference is unnecessary, especially given your biology. Also, inaccurate, since you mostly share the same caliber, even though yes, your rifle is higher quality and has a better rate of fire and repeatable accuracy capabilities, along with better velocity and a caseless design which affords higher magazine capacity. Finally, it’s disgusting.

  That actually got a chuckle out of her. They set up around her, putting down those barricades Panda bought so long ago. They were super cheap, but difficult to transport. Two people were needed to carry the door-sized slabs of metal before unfolding their bases. On either side, slightly behind them, two teams set themselves up to create overlapping fields of fire. That was a total of three fireteams on one corridor if they were needed. “Nice plan.”

  It is well considered. Not perfect, but nothing humans create can be considered such. However, there may be a problem.

  Before she could ask what that would be, the ground burst open and a massive armored centipede shot out. With wings. Oh, and it had a disturbingly Panda-shaped addition on its nose…

  ***

  Bella looked down at the blackening ground with mild concern, not that she felt much of that very often. It was hard to be that worried about anything when your job was to kill from far away from the action.

  Her teacher also made sure to beat the fear out of her. That bastard might have been a monster, but he knew how to shoot well. He taught her how to kill, but also how to live. He also taught her to focus on the facts. Fear was the mind-killer. Logic was the mother of effectiveness. Effectiveness meant living.

  “Effectiveness means living friends…” She calmly muttered to herself, her little addition to that sociopath’s way of life, while looking through her scope with one eye, keeping the other open in a wide-angle, fish-eye configuration. Her mind split between unwavering focus and calm openness, letting every sense absorb her environment like a sponge in the back of her mind. Her entire body was dedicated to the first, steady hands and steady breaths, and never focused on the second until necessary.

  She’d never been the most… emotional, but self-delusion was not part of her way of life. She cared about people more than her teacher, and cared about the Bear-Yakuza more than he could have ever fathomed. It had not been a voluntary evolution, it just… happened.

  She had more rules than her teacher, meaning less financial success, but having a clearer conscience also meant greater effectiveness, fewer regrets to hold her back from the mission, and she always accomplished the mission. Her teachings focused on jobs, but she’d adapted, as she was taught, because adapting meant living. In the end, missions were just jobs that mattered.

  Still, the facts helped her stay calm. Calm meant greater vigilance, better sensory absorption and awareness, and, most importantly, accuracy. Accurate math, accurate shots, accurate thoughts, accurate kills.

  First fact; Panda’s armor was made to handle high-heats, far beyond what napalm could produce. She knew every single specification by heart. Numbers help the calm.

  Second; the man could escape whenever he wished to. Her boss may have been a bit absent-minded when in battle-frenzy, but never mindless. A single high-explosive shell would open a way out in moments.

  Third; she doubted anything could kill him quickly, which meant he could adapt. His infinite arsenal provided an incredible advantage.

  Fourth; The crazy bastard survived much more dangerous things, he’d be fine.

  She didn’t feel worry, fear, just focus. The world fell away and she lasered in, that little side part of her mind would alert her of anything if she needed, nothing else mattered but the target. They’d come, they always did. The waiting didn’t bother her, nothing did, because she was in the zone.

  So, when that model twelve burst out of the ground, she immediately opened fire. However, when her range-finder and electronic aiming assist systems started to break down due to the ECM countermeasures, she almost started to laugh. She might have slightly smirked. A quick flick of her finger and that wonderful self-adjusting sight folded to the side.

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  Altany had been slightly dubious when she asked for ironsights, but this was why. She mentally switched her eyes to pure-lenses and nothing else, a feature her teacher made sure she always included. ECM counter-measures were everywhere, it just made sense to be able to function without any electronics whatsoever.

  A quick mental calculus decided what velocity she set the mechanical adjustment knob on the side of her rifle to. Given the downward angle, she didn’t have to start draining the battery too hard. All the adjuster decided was ‘amount of power to dump’, ECM couldn’t mess with that. Then, she opened fire.

  The Wraith always taught her one shot, one kill. Wounding was for people who enjoy return fire. Aim, calculate, kill, move, aim again, recalculate, kill again, repeat. However, that damn bumble-bee was massive and she was not sure how big, or even where that brain was.

  “Brain…” She muttered at Altany, trusting her to know what she was talking about.

  However, before she could end it, a massive booming shot came from a few towers over and the thing’s head blew up, a truly massive exit wound spreading brains in a cone of plant viscera. “That’s where…” She muttered to herself. Her shots had been doing damage, but this did better. She felt no annoyance at not getting a kill, the job was done, who cared how? She felt nothing but focus…

  Suddenly, the absorption part of her brain picked up something and she moved! In less than a second, she had her revolver, a handgun made to still be accurate at a distance, aimed at… A box. A box that appeared with some confetti around it. A voice came over through the ‘Altany’ implant in her head, which made sense since the non-enforcer comms were fucked.

  “Good job! You did very complex mathematics in your head, and very quickly! I’m proud of you!” Grasshopper said, enthusiastically, and somehow not sarcastically. She opened the box and looked.

  There was a sticker in it, a gold star with a big and bold ‘Math Wiz!’ on it. “Thank you…” She answered, because what else would she say? From one sniper to another, it did feel a bit… nice. The woman clearly knew the complexity of what she’d just pulled off, so it…

  Bella blinked, holstered her pistol and got back in the zone as fast as possible. That model twelve wasn’t the only one, and the others would have trouble.

  ***

  “Fuck!” Francis swore as comms went down. “Altany, can you hear me?”

  Yes, model twelve ECM does not affect the enforcer implants since they are made of superior technology. The militia will be out of commission, and so will your aim assistance system.

  “Please turn it off, I’ve been leading my shots in for years, I’ll be fine! Give me a belt with one tracer in four!” He’d switch after the one he had, no need to waste ammo, he could lead with impacts for a bit.

  Gary’s voice came over enforcer comms. “Everyone! Take operational command of the militia around you! I’ll need you to communicate with them, make sure this shit doesn’t devolve into chaos!” Francis nodded to himself and acknowledged. Good call, he’d have to reassure them too. They’d mostly brought veterans on this job, but there were a few newbies that might panic.

  “It’s game over man, game over!” One of the said newbies screamed next to him. He slapped the back of his head, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to make sure he got out of his own bullshit thoughts.

  “Get your shit together! Your gun works, doesn’t it? Just point it at the aliens and shoot! I’ll pick up whatever slack there is, come on! We’re Bear-Yakuza and these fuckers might spread towards our home, you want that?” A loud chorus of ‘no sir!’ answered him, loud enough that the ones on the second floor behind them could hear.

  A similar scene took place all around the perimeter, everyone getting their game faces on as the ground buckled a few hundred meters in front of them, almost perfectly following the hexagon of towers’ edge. “Plant fucks who killed our people incoming, ready for some god damn payback!?”

  A much louder, angrier ‘YES SIR!’ answered, and they all aimed downrange. They had tons of magazines and extra crates ready. Everyone had the ammo needed to take down an army.

  Francis had to admit, the giant fucking buzzers with armored carapaces that started fucking flying out shook even him up. Their fucking ECM made it fucking hard to aim at them, their form even a little blurry to his augs.

  What was not blurry was Panda jumping towards one of them! The crazy fuck was on a collision course straight for one’s head. Yeah, if aim-assist was out the window, his friend might have trouble with long-range shots. Really wasn’t his thing.

  Francis looked on in shock as the giant-ass bee crumpled in on itself and fell! Panda had been aiming to punch the giant thing, which looked a bit ridiculous given the sizes involved, but then his arm shot forward so fast that… wait, the first boom must have been an explosive discharge, but the second?

  Did… did Panda just throw a super-sonic punch? “Holy shit…”

  I am quite proud of this invention. However, he needs to repair a few torn ligaments and would appreciate it if you tried to shoot the next one.

  Francis shook his head, what the fuck was wrong with him!? He had aliens to kill.

  ***

  Marina felt a bit overwhelmed. Really, this wasn’t ‘enforcer’ work. Their job used to be… essentially bullying. They didn’t feel fucking proud of it but… yeah, no, destroying armies of aliens wasn’t part of the job.

  And now, they were supposed to inspire soldiers to not run? They wanted to run! The giant bugs didn’t help! “What do we do?” the fireteam lead next to them asked. Good question…

  Marinia took a deep breath, then thought on it for a couple seconds. “Well, these fucks are going to attack us. If we fuck up, they’ll go after our friends. If they fuck up, they’ll spread out, become a danger to… everyone, our families included.” They were honestly just working it out for themselves out loud.

  The kids… There was one thing that they wouldn’t say out loud; they wanted their children to look up to them. Marinia had never done anything worth much pride, but this? When their kids grew up, this might be worth looking up to…

  They nodded, then spoke to the scared woman. “I’m staying here, run if you want, I won’t blame you, but I’m not abandoning my gang. If you choose to stay, get that gun pointed forward, then shoot the fuckers. Simple.” Apparently, that worked, getting the woman to tighten her shit up.

  Marinia was a martial artist, mostly focused on Muay-Thai and Krabi-Krabong, the armed counterpart to the more popular first. The two brought… some amount of peace, incorporating a lot of meditation and, over time, both became something to be a bit proud of. Marinia had talent for it! Very importantly, being proficient in two martial arts helped them feel safe… or at least safer.

  They frequently sparred with Panda, trying to perfect technique against an opponent with not only an alien martial art in their head, but also non-standard physiology. So, most of their equipment was melee-focused; two single-handed sabres, forearm shields capable of a bit of movement and turning sharp, some brass knuckles, quite a few mods and very high flexibility armor. Still, they had a ranged option; a compact, bayonet equipped, sixty-rounds helical mag auto-shotgun. That fucking beast had been made to easily attach to their back and stay out of the way during melee. The compact destruction-machine could still put down most models in one or two shots.

  But… Yeah, the militia needed inspiration. Marina walked forward, making sure to stay in view of the second-floor teams so they could shoot over them. “You guys ready?” An enthusiastic response helped their nerves.

  “Good, kill anything that gets past me and please try to avoid shooting me.” They closed a fist, watching the arcs of electricity, and instantly felt a lot more confident about this plan!

  ***

  David looked at his boss, and smiled. This’d be fun! He hefted his 15mm assault rifle and looked through the sights. ECM thankfully didn’t seem to fuck with his red-dot! The amount of propellant in those caseless rounds would’ve bruised the shit out of anyone that wasn’t as augmented as him!

  This new chapter in the gang’s history felt wonderful. No need to feel bad about killing aliens, and boy did he love battle! It’d been his downfall before, too many fucking injuries causing massive medical debt. Injuries piled up after he went to fight the Kais, but augs that worked only half as well still worked and they could patch him up well enough themselves… Mostly. He’d been in a lot of pain at all times and addicted to pain meds. Now? Carol could just deal with whatever!

  He still worried about the creditors, but a lot less than before. They’d stopped asking a long time ago since, well, he didn’t answer their calls and shit. The ones who came to Peach-Trees didn’t often come out unscathed.

  None of that mattered though! Why? Well, he had a massive gun, awesome augs and could take care of whatever problem that shit invited.

  “You guys ready?” He asked the fighters next to him. They were good soldiers, the kind that wanted to fight, or else they wouldn’t be here. This was voluntary. These guys didn’t need to be ordered to stay or threatened or whatever, they just needed to know they weren’t fucked. “Alright, don’t worry, we still got comms thanks to Altany, just aim like you did with your old AKs. The HFUGs are pounding that hive real good and hey, I’m here, the fuck are you worried for?”

  That got some laughter and a few jeers, which’d do for now. When some aliens made it up the slope, David opened fire. There were so few of them that, really, his gun was just overkill. Then again, it earned points. He’d count this as aiming practice.

  The gun he got could honestly be considered an anti-material rifle, but one made to handle like a normal AR with burst and fully-auto options. Full auto was just useless for most people, but for fighting the aliens? If you had good enough augs to keep the muzzle down and keep aiming? That shit could be destructive as fuuuuck!

  And he loved being destructive as fuck! 15mm caseless esoteric rounds at 12.7mm nato velocity, usually using tungsten instead of lead? His baby had a talent for absolute destruction!

  Still, at the moment, he just fired semi-auto into a few survivors, pretty boring in fact… “Fuck…” He’d just jinxed himself, didn’t he? “Fuck fuck fuck fuck!”

  Of course, a few moments later, the HFUGs stopped shooting…