“Are you alright? Where’s Hel?” Sharron asked as she burst out of the back of the sed Kodiak. I had the other IFVs nd and make their way towards us at street level to avoid the line of fire of those monstrous guns.

  “She’s trying to vitabyte to help her ruin the cil, both socially and financially. Either that, or she’s drafting a message to the rest of the samurai, letting them know she’s going to war. The st thing she said before she stomped off was, and I quote, ‘I’m going to ruin those greedy assholes and nail their balls to the front of the cil building,’” I said lightly.

  “You seem very calm, sidering the situation,” Nora observed as she exited the Kodiak a sed ter. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just running some mental simutions on the best way to pletely and utterly crush those fug assholes!” I managed about half of that sentence before my rage burst forth and I started thrashing wildly about.

  “Now that’s what I expected to see out of you,” Nora said quietly.

  “The cil has apparently gone all in on stupidity juice. Dug themselves a hole to die in, and instead of climbing out, they dug deeper. Now, I’m going to bury them in it!”

  “That’s a terrible metaphor,” Nora mumbled.

  Sharron shot the younger girl a quick look, shook her head as if to say, ‘Not the time,’ then turned bae. “So what are you going to do?”

  “First of all, we o stop them from killing thousands of people. If Denver’s military isn’t pletely inpetent, something I sadly haven’t seen any proof of yet, they should avoid the Deerfoot districe Hel sends out her annou.” I took a deep breath, attempting to calm down. “Unfortunately, I’m not vihat’ll prevent the cil from carrying out their pn. If they’re desperate enough to colpse a pte in the first pce, I could see them bringing it down and trying to bme Denver for it. Stupid? Yes, but if they could drum up some local support and sympathy from other cities?”“You think they’d trade thousands of lives for sympathy points?” Nora asked, horrified.

  “I think they’re extremely desperate and want to hold onto whatever power they ,” I grumbled. “Fug greedy corps!”

  Sharron and Nora were spared airade by Hel, who had returned from the alley she’d goo rant in. “Zetta won’t help ruin the cil,” she said. She appeared much calmer than she had been earlier, but I didn’t know if that was because she had time to work through the situation or she was just holding it in like me. “He WILL, however, broadcast their pns for the pte, and anize an evacuation of the upper city citizens. He’ll also let the other samurai know our situation and bloy cil propaganda.”

  “Only the upper city?” I growled.

  “There’s kind of a superheavy shooting down anything that approaches that area of the uy,” Sharron reminded me.

  I narrowed my eyes, grimaced a little, but relented on that point. “Okay, fair.”

  “So what do we do now?” Nora asked. “We absolutely have to prevent them from detonating that support, but if that superheavy knoe of Teddy’s Kodiaks out of the air, how we possibly get close?”

  “The Kodiak is still good! There was never any real danger of it peing the armor, it just had a little erouble!” I excimed, turning back to the vehicle. “Sure, it’s still smoking from multiple pces and half buried ireet, but it’s solid!”

  “This is not the time to try and sell us on the quality of your vehicles,” Sharron sighed. “If you thought they could survive a frontal assault, you would have sent them in already. We need a real pn.”

  “Oh, I already have a pn,” I told everyone. “I put it into motion the minute we crashed, and I should hear the oute of it any minute now.”

  Sharron narrowed her eyes. “n?”

  Beside her, Nora frantically sed the area before looking back at me, eyes wide. “Where’s Bob?”

  —

  “Are you sure we should have shot those transports down? I’m pretty sure they beloo that Bear Girl. I think the st thing we’d want to do is piss off a samurai,” Lieutenant Colette hissed.

  el Henderson sighed. He ran a hand through his slowly greying hair before looking at the Shell Storm’s sed in and. “We have our orders. No one is allowed to approach this area until our job is done. You think the samurai are going to look at us kindly when that pte colpses? But if we’d refused, we would have been shot, and the cil would have put another crew in our baby, you know that. All we do is cim we were following orders.”

  “You holy think a samurai is going to care about that?” the athletic brue growled. “We should abandon our position aher surreo the Denver forces or head to another city. We’re helping the cil it mass murder. I don’t care what the cil’s paying us, I didn’t sign up for that.”

  Henderson looked at the woman, and opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, there was a call from the observer on top of the tank. “Gunfire from the north! It looks like one of the guard squads engaged enemy units.”

  Swiveling the turret so it was fag the northern street, Henderson activated the image enha. The camera on the elevated turret took a couple of seds to focus on the area, and when it did, it revealed a bck bear marg through the defensive lines. It pletely ighe defenders, shrugging off everything thrown at it while it marched forward. Heading directly for the Shell Storm.

  Colette paled when she saw the image. “The Great Bear,” she whispered.

  Henderson closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then raised his voice. “Ahat disagrees with the cil’s decision to drop the pte or wants out of this flict, you have ten seds to leave the Storm. Starting now!” He reached up, grabbed the financial shard he wore around his neck, tore it off, and shoved it into Colette’s hands. “Take care of them,” he growled.

  She looked at him fused, just for a moment, before saluting and booking it towards one of the rge side hatches. Most of the crew followed her, leaving just Henderson, the driver, and two gunners.

  “We’re with you, sir!” one of the men yelled, before the three crew members saluted.

  “It’s been an honor to work with you, you stupid bastards,” Henderson grumbled as he slipped on his noise-g headphones. he flipped the fire trol and target assistance systems on, causing the Shell Storm’s massive ons to start spinning up, filling the hull with a loud electrical whine. Ohe tank was ready, he carefully targeted the distant bear silhouette, said a quick prayer, and pulled the trigger.

  The area was instantly filled with unbelievable noise as the twin rotary ons opened up, spewing shells dowreet at a dizzying rate. Henderson held dowrigger for a full ten seds, long enough for the street to be pletely obstructed by smoke and dust. One of the surrounding buildings trembled and colpsed from the shockwaves.

  Henderson carefully sed the se, looking for any sign of movement. For several long seds, everything was still.

  “Too easy,” the ander mumbled. “e on!”

  As if summohe creature erupted from the smoke, no lorolling dowreet but charging forward on all fours. The plush c had been pletely ripped away, exposing the warbot’s true form. A vaguely humanoid shape covered in massive amounts of interlog heavy armor. Red eyes burned out of its otherwise featureless face.

  Quickly adjusting his aim, Henderson zeroed in o again and pulled the trigger, aen-sed burst. This time, as soon as he let off the trigger, the monster shot fain.

  He tried again, adjusting the on, suppressing the bot, only for it to take off the insta off.

  “You three out! It ’t be stopped; all I do is slow it down. Run while you !” One of the men tried to answer, but Henderson had already pulled the trigger. This time, he did not let go.

  To their credit, the men DID evacuate, using his distra to leave the doomed vehicle.

  Henderson just held dowrigger, ting down the seds aing the dread build. The Shell Storm had the best burst damage out of any vehicle in Calgary, but even with its extended, belt-fed magazine, ammo was limited.

  The tank mao fire for just under a minute before the shells stopped firing, the oy. The instant the fire stopped, the bot shot forward. Henderson watched in horror as the bot charged the st couple feet, leapt onto the hull, and stood up menagly. It squared off with the turret, wound up, and smashed its fist right into the camera.

  The turret screeched and deformed, so Henderson ducked down into the hull. The sed blow was apanied by screeg and popping noises as the turret lifted off the hull briefly. The third blow separated the two halves of the tank, leaving the hull open to the air.

  Henderson stared up at the bear as it loomed over him. It’s outer c was quickly regeing, and now that it had enough of a face, he could tell it was furious. Gng around the empty hull, it humphed before hopping down and stepping over to him.

  It raised a fist, wound up, but paused just for a sed before striking. “Sorry, chief, Boss says no more sed ces.”