“There appear to be only three Snipers, and only one is streaming. We have the bomb-infused UAVs following all three. We will disable their mains shortly. It takes them a few minutes to dig in to fire. We will wait until they have selected a spot before we disable their main guns. It should be noted the third Sniper has gone off on her own into the hills south of base. One point five kilometers south of base. She has a lion logo on her mech.”
Sam grunted. “Is there a stuffed animal head on that one, too?”
Roger didn’t say anything more, but I got the implication. This Sniper was Bastet, our supposed ally.
“Howdy, boys!” Lulu’s mocking voice echoed across the battlefield. “You seem to have put a lot of effort into your outfits for our hot date tonight. I hope you don’t disappoint me like you did last time. Do we have any real men out there, someone to give me a real good time? Ezra Abdullah, is that you in the panda suit? How’d you get that screen name ‘Eight Inch Ezra’? Are you going to give meeightinches?” Lulu made a sexual groan. “I’d like that, big boy, but I’m afraid I like it all at once, if you know what I’m saying. I don’t have the patience for you to visit me four times. No, don’t look at wolf boy Lucas standing next to you. You don’t wanthisadvice on things. How is he a wolf, an apex predator? That’s only half right, believe me.Seriously, have you guys looked up the criminal records of those people you’ve been hanging out with? And they’re not even cool crimes. Kitty boy was sued by his own grandmother? Pathetic.”
“The Heavies are exclusively coming from the north,” Roger continued, ignoring Lulu’s insults. “They are now surrounded with support that will make it difficult for us to use the honeybees to disable them. We will be forced to use the UAV contingency to disable their guns.”
I nodded. We had plans heaped upon plans, contingencies upon contingencies for tonight’s raid. In addition, we’d gathered several ideas from the net. While hardly anyone seemed to be on our side, the armchair warriors sure loved spouting off their ideas of defensive tactics and traps. There were literally thousands of posts with things like “I don’t understand why they don’t…”
Roger had made a quick survey of all the posts and determined the vast majority of ideas were absolute crap, but a few had merit. Someone had suggested we use the honeybees themselves as bombs, which we were all hesitant to do, but the flying UAVs could be installed with a small amount of explosive material. It wouldn’t be enough to destroy a mech, but it would be enough to kill the main gun of both the Snipers and the Heavies. The UAVs could fly high and fast and strike with precision if need be. We didn’t have an unlimited supply of the things, however, so we needed to save some if we could.
In addition, someone pointed out that if a mech didn’t have jump jets and it fell over, it was pretty much done unless one of their friends came to pick them up. As Roger had noted more than once, the war machines were all designed the way they were because they were cool and fun to drive, not because they were effective. There was a reason why these things weren’t used in “real” war. And all these stupid decorations were great in a gaming environment, but in real life, all they did was get in the way.
Lulu had found a woman streamer driving a purple-painted Attenuator, and she was leaning hard into her. “Nancy, Nancy, Nancy.Your social credit score is lower than the one of the guy who stole his grandmother’s wheelchair money. Now,thatis an accomplishment. It’s like you have to actually work to get it that low. Is it true what they said about you in school? Are you the one who set that fire? Based on your choice of weapons, I’d say it’s true. I’m sending an email right now to all your former classmates just to remind them of how much of a loser you were. Remember your old crush Vadim? Yeah, he still hates you. He and Isla still laugh about you sometimes. Oops. Just sent him that picture you shared on that Rate My Rack site last year. I imagine his opinion is going to lower that four average you received down to a three point five. I’ll have someone post it in your chat so others can vote.”
“God, even I’m starting to feel bad about this now,” Sam said. “It’s one thing when they’re, like, asshole pricks, but she sounds like just a regular lonely person.”
“You know who I feel bad for?” Lulu said over the band. “Mr.Gonzales. Little Henry. Everyone else who died. They come for us, then nothing is off-limits.” A moment passed, and then she added, “Roger, what’s with all the bestiality insults? Is there something you’re not telling us?”
“That’s what I just said!” Sam exclaimed.
“Christ, Roger,” I said. “Is that stuff true? How do you even know all that?” I hadn’t spent time looking at the dossier, but I looked now. It was significantly more detailed than it had been the night before. Most of the entries now included pictures of the drivers.
Before Roger could answer, I received a text-only message on my bracelet. It was from Lulu, and she was messaging both me and Roger at the same time.
Lulu:Roger, have you made contact with the agent from Persimmon?
Roger:I have a UAV and a honeybee in the vicinity of the Sniper with the Persimmon markers. I have made my position known vocally. Hedid not respond at all. Either verbally or with action. I will get closer and attempt again.
Lulu:D*mnit.
I turned to the floating Melissa. “When are we going to—”
And that was when she exploded.
Chapter 35
“Down, down!” I shouted as I jumped behind the fortified barrier atop the wall. Beyond us, Lulu and all her mortars fired just as the enemy BYE mortars also fired. I peered over the edge to see the line of animal heads quietly explode one by one like pieces of popcorn, strewing white material everywhere as the hidden mortars under the round heads were discharged. Each mech had a line of three tubes on its flat head where the stuffed decorations were affixed.
My arm burned where it had been scorched by burning flecks of Melissa. The shrapnel had pierced all the way through the heavy armor of my jacket.
Melissa had been hit by a Sniper. Behind me, a big chunk of the barn was just gone. It looked like someone had taken a bite out of it.
Roger, calm as could be, crackled in my ear. “Engaging two of the three Snipers now. That first one fired before getting settled, and he damaged himself in the process. Engaging Heavies now. Honeybees moving in. Firing smoke now.”
I can’t believe hiding those mortars under those heads actually worked.But even as I thought that, one of the heads on a BYE mech—this was a rabbit—exploded loudly. The entire top half of the mech went up.The legs staggered, and the whole thing toppled over. As it fell, it caused a second BYE mech to stagger, and its mortar fired off to the side.
Missiles started flaring from our side as the whistle of incoming mortars filled us all with dread. We covered our heads.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Explosions walked across the base, mostly in the fields in front of us. A few did go over the walls but not many. The rounds that did make it inside were pushing through the crisscross pattern of the camo netting, but the ceiling held true. The ones that hit the field in front of us didn’t seem to really detonate.
“Some of the mortars broke into a ton of little pieces, but they didn’t explode!” Axel said over the band.
Near me, Sam looked up. “That’s it?” he asked.
