Chapter Forty-Two - Earning the Tier

Chapter Forty-Two - Earning the Tier

Chapter Forty-Two - Earning the Tier

At lower tiers, the effectiveness of a single samurai on the field is actually questionable.

That might lead some to wonder; if a samurai is little better than a small battalion of trained troops, then why not replace them with just that?

The answer is that while a low-tier samurai might only be that powerful, they wont be low-tiered forever.

--A discussion on the value of samurai on large scale battlefronts, 2028

***

I was just planning my route, a map open in the corner of my vision, when some clever asshole decided that a large mass of bunched-together aliens would make for a great target for some artillery.

Something screamed above, and I raised my head and tracked a tiny black speck through the air. Its parabolic arc ended with it smashing into the ground a good fifty metres ahead of the wave.

A loud boom echoed out, while dust and smoke rose out of the impact crater as a massive column. Nice, I muttered. Myalis, can you get in touch with whomever fired that? Tell them they missed.

On it.

The wave was undaunted by the blast. I think most human armies would start running faster to get to cover or something, but the sea of bugs charging towards the city didnt change their breakneck pace at all.

I looked at my map again. There were lots of streets to cover. Okay. Were going to push them down... Mapleway. I need... these six bigger roads blocked off, and all the alleys along them before the blockage.

The city was laid out as a grid, with some concessions made for the underlying terrain. This wasnt New Montreal, built on a massive platform raised above the ground, but a more normal cityscape like they used to build before.Findd new stories at novelhall.com

I couldnt funnel the entire wave. There were too many of them. But maybe I could funnel in a fraction, a good chunk of those heading in towards the city. It would concentrate them, sure, and that would be fucking awful if they ever reached the defenders covering the gap, but I didnt intend to let that happen.

Funnel them into a big group, then bomb them back to whatever hell theyd crawled out of.

I need mecha, I said. Six... no, eight. See these roads. I want them blocked off. Foam, maybe pepper in some resonators for if they try to climb over.

I quickly drew some lines across the map. In the end, my design looked a bit like a square-stepped pyramid, with the tip pointing towards New Montreal itself. Every blocked road would be next to an alleyway or a side street that would let the wave move closer inwards. If we blocked off enough alleys and the previous side-roads, then theyd have no choice but to be pulled in. At least, if they didnt stop to sniff around.

Fuck, I was treating the entire wave as if it were made of water or something, not living things.

What are the chances this works? I asked Myalis.

But in case it wasnt enough... Resonator.

That one dropped down into the foam with a dull splat. It managed to stay afloat as the foam expanded, a tiny screaming present for the first fucks to try and claw their way over the wall.

I jumped over the alley, legs bunching up so that Id clear the gap. Kinda forgot I had a jetpack for a moment. Next one, I said.

The artillery fire started to grow less coordinated and precise. I could tell that some shots were flying much further out, and I winced as a shell crashed into a building that immediately exploded, fire and cement siding flying everywhere.

At least some of the shrapnel would probably brain a few of the xenos.

A glance over my shoulder revealed that the wave was hitting the city proper. They slipped around abandoned cars and over guard-rails. It was hard to tell the individual models apart, they were jammed so close together.

Then I noticed something in the dust behind them. Wings, beating fast.

A swarm of flying models swooped out of the dust. Little models, no bigger than pigeons, but also huge fuckers with wingspans like private jets.

Ah, fuck, I muttered as I whipped my gun around. I didnt fire. There was still a ways between them and me, and the chances that Id do more than take out a few of the smaller ones with some stray pellets wasnt great.

The wave hadnt even hit my barriers and already my plan had gone to shit.

We need AA, I said.

Something screamed through the air. Not a shell, something bigger and faster, accompanied by a loud buzz. A glance above and I found a squadron of prop-planes shooting forwards. The guns fixed under their wings opened fire with a mechanical humm and lines of bright-green tracers flitted through the air and into the swarm.

Maybe I didnt need AA just yet.

Large hovering vehicles were rising above the gap, with guns afixed to their sides. They started firing, and the air exploded with black-grey bursts of shrapnel around ahead of the flying aliens.

I turned and continued running across the rooftops.

This wasnt a one-person effort, I realized. There was an entire army here.

For a moment, I wondered what I could do alone. But then, maybe my job was just going to be picking up the slack.

I flung another pair of grenades down a maintenance passage between two buildings and then kept moving.

Soon the swarm would be on me, then Id have other shit to worry about than how useful I could be.

***