Chapter 40: Not a Sunday Drive
In Paulie’s short time as a member of the Greater Galactic Intercession he had learned a lot about the wider galaxy and those that dwelt within it. Technology he would have thought impossible, creatures and races that buggered belief. And of course, weapons and vehicles.
Now, like most of the tech used by the GGI, land vehicles tended to be lightweight and ran on a sort of microfusion hydrogen powercell that was easy to swap out and lasted a long time. They were toxic when ruptured and so most of the time when damaged they would release a thick fire-resistant foam that hardened nearly instantly in order to seal them.
He had the occasion to ride in several such vehicles so far. The public transit system, adjudicator cruisers and even a few armoured personnel carriers. But the vehicle he led the others towards was like a fusion of both and yet looked like neither.
It was long and clunky with large plow-like armour slab at the front, boxy like an old train engine and had four huge armoured wheels. Not the ball-like omniwheels of the cruisers, but more like the hex-matt airless tires of the APCs. These were almost as tall as the strange vehicle itself which was only slightly taller than Paulie’s own two-hundred-and-one centimeters. The entire thing almost gave him the impression of a sort of wheeled coffin box, a land torpedo primed to ram into combat with overwhelming brute force.
Reaching the side of the vehicle, he nodded to Jakiikii. She reached down with one of her third-arms and pulled the dataslate that Rozz had contacted them with from her belt, activating the device and handing it over to him with a look that seemed to tell him to be careful.
The screen changed before he even had it in hand, the falling lines of alien text changing to the dark mass of Rozz. Dark red eyes staring out from an ever-shifting field of black tendrils, questing and hungry looking.
“Rozz, we have a vehicle that should work. Can you give me remote access to it?” He nodded towards the hive mind on screen as he turned the camera of the device to point at the vehicle in question. The gurgling voice answered from that ever-shifting mass. Tiny red eyes blinking as Rozz responded.
“Yes.” The large breacher vehicle’s lights glowed to life as the armoured side door cracked open on electronic hinges.
A sound like distant thunder shook the ground and Paulie nodded to the others, “Get in. We need to move.” He waited till Jakiikii was on board before he climbed into the armoured car himself. Looking down at the tablet he asked, “Are you able to interface with this vehicle? So I don’t have to keep holding onto this tablet.”
“Yes. It has computer systems that we are able to connect to, how do you think we were able to give you remote access, human Paulie. There should be headsets that are able to connect you together as well” He pursed his lips, stowing his Nemesis revolver back into its holster and looked around, finding the flexible headsets after a moment of searching.
They were flexible, likely made in such a way that they were compatible with a wide range of alien biologies and physiques. He grabbed one that seemed his size and motioned to the others who did the same after a second, it fit well enough. Kind of like a pair of headphones that wrapped around the back of his head and upper neck.
Jakiikii looked to have already hopped into the front of the vehicle, her voice calling from the cabin, “Strap in. We are not stopping till we get to the palace!”
Paulie looked around the space, it was short and cramped. Much more so than he had expected, hopefully that meant the vehicle would be a tougher nut to crack. He had already seen at least one regular APC get taken out due to enemy fire. Not an experience he wanted to familiarise himself with any more.
Paulie sat across the small interior space from Lieutenant Flaxigan, the heechian applying the straps and buckles of the multispecies harness with practiced efficiency as she adjusted her headset. She glanced up towards him as she did, seemingly unable to keep her eyes from wandering over to him.
‘Here it comes.’ Paulie thought to himself, the inevitable questions about his species. His birth world.
But to his surprise, she didn’t ask him about any of them. Instead, she pointed to him and asked, “What kind of gun was that? My ears are still ringing.” Paulie smiled, of course. The other question, but this one he was happy to answer.
Pulling the massive hand cannon from its sling under his arm, he presented it towards her. Making sure to double check the safety switch was in the safe position.
“It's a revolving chemical-projectile weapon, I call it Nemesis.”
The heechian reached towards him and paused, “May I?”
Paulie nodded, the car jostling slightly as he did so. Jakiikii spoke, her voice coming through the speakers of his headset apologising about the rougher than standard ride. Something about a roadblock, the sounds of something impacting the outer hull of the vehicle, then the engine growling as they were carried away from whatever had obstructed them.
He nodded to the alien female, “Of course, the safety is on by the way. Here.” He handed the gun to her and watched as the alien turned it over in her four-fingered hands. Her six eyes turned to the gun, seemingly admiring its blunt, inelegant features. It was not made to be flashy, a simple gunmetal grey finish with heavy edges. It was meant to do its job, and keep doing it without stopping no matter the abuse or conditions.
“What does it run on? I see no charge indicator.” She asked, tapping the side of the handle.
Paulie chuckled. “No power cells, it’s entirely analog. No electronics at all, it will work under water, in the vacuum of space.. anywhere I might ever need it to. And the ammunition is cheap, but undoubtedly effective.” He listed off the types of ammo he had for it, Lieutenant Flaxigan’s eyes widening a little more each time until he got to the end and she spluttered.
“Hyperdiamond-sleeve starshatter rounds? Depleted uranium core explosive bolts? What in the great galaxy would you ever need stuff like that for!?” She seemed torn between complete mystification and mental breakdown.
Paulie shrugged as he was jostled in his seat again. “I don’t know. What if I need to shoot a tyrannosaurus rex, or a tank?”
Lieutenant Flaxigan scoffed, her mouth opening to reveal sharp hypodermic fangs as she muttered, “Yea, and what have I got? A laser pointer..”
She sounded so disappointed that Paulie nodded to her in sympathy. “I see no reason why you would not be able to requisition your own. Ticcik still has the plans for this one, and from what I know they made more than one. Though you might want to get one in a slightly lower calibre, kind of heavy recoil on this one.” That perked her right back up, the thought of owning her own heavy apocalypser-designed weapon seemed to appeal to her greatly.
He took the gun back and tucked it into the holster, gripping an overhead sling as the breacher took another sharp turn. Jakiikii’s voice rang over their localised comms, “We are getting close. I think you had better get ready to bail. It would make sense for the palace to be under attack as well, maybe even more than the precinct was!”
Paulie steeled himself mentally and felt the alien urge to kill, that psychotic love of slaughter that had so gripped him earlier. It was the damn parasite, the stupid worm was trying to get one over him again.
With supreme effort of will, he suppressed the jargon worm. Its maddening cackles turning to feelings of protest as he slammed a heavy mental lid over the patchwork fortress it was quickly growing out of. He shuddered a little, it was getting harder to suppress the alien symbiote. From what he knew, they should exhibit no more hostility than a calculator. But he was experiencing a whole lot of hostility right now from the insolent slug.
He jerked as something touched his shoulder. Focusing back on the real world outside his head he saw Lieutenant Flaxiga and Officer Kreenin looking at him, strange alien looks on their faces. Having not spent nearly as much time with heech or nerivith, he was not nearly as familiar with their emotive displays as he was with Jakiikii's or Mack’s.
Paulie rolled his head on his shoulders and put on a wide smile, the nerivith drawing back slightly at the display. “Well, things could be worse.”
Officer Kreenin grumbled almost too quietly to hear, “How could things possibly be worse.”
Jakiikii shouted from the front, the yell followed by a terrific noise and flash of light before the entire vehicle jolted violently and slewed to the side. With a chorus of yells they were thrown against their harnesses, the sounds of smashing and clanging against the hull threatening to deafen him such was the violence of the sound.
“Damn it, bad karma is always kicking my ass.” Paulie groaned as he extricated himself from the harness that had saved him from dashing his skull against the inside of the vehicle.
Jakiikii jumped out of the cockpit, guns in hand. “We need to disembark, now! The front wheel was slagged by some manner of high energy impact. I think we hit a mine of some sort, I didn’t see an incoming shot and the blast came from under the vehicle.” She moved to the back of the vehicle and slapped a switch that was quickly followed by the groaning of electronic motors.
Lieutenant Flaxigan and the nerivith officer stirred as well, their movements a little more sluggish and confused. If Paulie had been rattled by the blast, they must be suffering much worse than he, the aliens being built for much lower stresses than himself. He reached forwards and helped the heechian adjudicator free of her harness, the alien nodding her canine-like head at him in thanks.
He moved towards the back, checking the straps on his armoured chestplate under his greatcoat and making sure he had not lost anything important. Shaking his head slightly, he stepped out onto the street and immediately took cover as best he could on the side of the vehicle farther from the road in case of immediate hostile activity.
There was smoke in the air, the smell of burning synthetic rubber and scorched metal. He looked back the direction they had come from and was a little shocked to see multiple disabled vehicles. Many of them were still smoking and one was on fire.
Jakiikii shrugged from beside him. “I wasn’t expecting to hit a mine, or whatever it was.”
Paulie asked, “And when you saw all the other disabled cars?”
She shrugged again, he had to remind himself that the city was at war. And she was really just a police officer. How often did one see landmines on city streets?
He was distracted from this line of thought as another voice joined them on the comms. “The Palace is just down the road, you might be able to see the main square from here if you look. Here, take these. They might be useful.” She said, handing Paulie a belt of small oblong objects.
He took them, “What are these? Grenades?”
She shook her head, the heechian’s tall pointed ears flicking as all six of her eyes looked at him directly. “Kind of, they are stunners. Make a loud noise with smoke and light. Should be useful for blinding and disorienting groups of.. whoever we might run into.”
He nodded his thanks. “Alright, uh.” He checked his gun again and then put the belt of stunners over his shoulder like a bandolier. “Lets move towards the palace, we might already be too late to do anything.”
The road's surface was hard underfoot as they jogged along, Paulie had to physically restrain himself from outpacing the two officers. They might be useful in a fight, so he didn’t want to just leave them behind. The dark grey of the roadway flashed past as the small group made their way as quickly as possible towards the nearing sounds of battle. Before they had even gotten close enough to see any fighting they came upon a large wall that sat across from a gap in the surrounding structures. The duracrete structure was high enough that even Paulie would have struggled to climb over the top unaided.
They skirted the far edge in an attempt to get closer to the growing sounds of conflict. Blasts and the snapping reports of laser impacts reached them as did yells and a strange buzzing, clicking sound that Paulie could not place.
The wall had a break in it ahead, the crumbled facade surrounded on the outside by a trio of strange vehicles that looked almost like modified APCs, except they had too many wheels. He thought he saw something move under one of the armoured transports.
“What is that..” Paulie managed before a bright flash burst upon him and he was thrown back to the ground. An incredible heat washed over him as he fell, the air knocked from his lungs as he impacted with a pained grunt.
Somebody yelled his name and then there was the sound of weapons fire, heavy and then nothing. Sucking in a breath, he patted at his chest only to yell hoarsely as his fingers were scalded. He looked down at his chest, a neat circular hole had been charred through the breast of his greatcoat only a few centimeters across. Under it his body armour smoked slightly, the outermost ablative layer having taken some damage as it absorbed the energy blast that should have otherwise killed him.
“What.. the hell?” he grunted as Lieutenant Flaxigan struggled to lift him to his feet.
“You are heavy, how in the name of zalc are you alive? That plasma blast should have fried you like dramcaps in oil.” She exclaimed, looking him up and down.
He patted his chest, not directly on the impact this time. “Body armour. I am wearing a plate carrier under my coat.”
The heechian woman blinked at him as if it were the dumbest thing she had ever heard. Then cocked her head, seeming to mull it over, the new information causing her to think. Before she managed to say anything else he just patted her shoulder.
“Come on.. we need to keep moving. I assume you neutralised any hostiles ahead?” Jakiikii stepped to his side as he said it, worrying over him before he pushed her away with a serious air. “I’m fine, really.. I am. We need to move, it sounds bad out there. And getting worse.”
As if to punctuate his point there was a much louder sound and a flash of light. The explosion reached out over the top of the wall not two hundred meters ahead, the ball of fire and smoke lighting the surrounding area for a moment as they jumped into the cover of the abandoned vehicles.
From his new position, he could see into the walled off area of the compound and got his first look at the palace of her Highness. It was a sprawling structure surrounded by gardens and outbuildings, but not all that tall. As if it had been built to mimic an ant hill, it slowly tapered from the sides to the middle upon which was raised higher and higher terraces and points all culminating at the zenith of the structure as a series of red and gold domes from which flew a series of flags. The whole thing giving the impression of a squat fortress made from grey duracrete and dark reddish stone.
And all around the base was chaos. From where he was standing, he saw at least four or five other skirmishes taking place, and a few that looked to have overwhelmed the defenders. Strange gangly bodies lying in the dirt and on the asphalt, the evidence of fierce conflict all around in the forms of laser burns and plasma scarring.
He gave the others a look and then swallowed heavily. “I guess this is your last chance to turn back. But I have a mission to save the queen, and that is what I am going to do.”
Officer Kreenin and Flaxiga looked at him and nodded, Jakiikii stood straighter. “We are all with you.” She said, stoically. Her slightly chirping tone communicated to him through the parasite that lived in his grey matter.
Paulie nodded, it was time to fulfill his purpose then. With a steady glare at the enemy that had perpetrated the carnage, he yelled and charged across the open space into the thick of the assault.