Ch. 142 – Gallows Humor

No, Tinea. That would merely make for a special kind of engine-rich exhaust.

– Tynea, after Tinea asked for oxygen-rich propellants that would burn extra-extra hot to make her rockets go faster, 2057

***

Leah's grin could've sent any horror movie slasher packing. It was a promise of violent love, and the purr in her voice set me to vibrating.

"My my, dear, what sweet temptation you speak. Yes, I would looove riding"—oh god—"a main battle tank. It's almost like I unlocked a war catalog all about main battle tanks."

"What, um," I replied faintly, "are your plans for one? Er, if you have any."

Leah hummed into my ear. It was a satisfied, smug moan. "Well. It'll be quite big, Tinea. Very…thicc—"

My brain yammered EMERGENCY BRAKES! and my fingers automatically jumped to her soft sides and discharged feinting flares in the form of high-RPM tickles, lest I go into a meltdown from further teasing and spray, uh, cooling fluids everywhere. Nevermind that my new, non-human skin probably had no issues being waterlogged for prolonged periods of time.

Leah jerked beneath me, giggling and wiggling hard enough that I had to use the Second Wind's motors to stay on top of her.

I didn't stop until she was too breathless to speak and could only pat my arms in surrender. Reluctantly, I removed one from my Tickle Time Tally. Three marks were left, but I was sure Leah would be adding more before I ran out.

Still heaving, she lifted a finger and caught a breath to say, "…I was gonna say 'it'll be quite big, very thicc…with armor plating,' but I think I like your countermeasures better."

I pouted. Tickle Time was supposed to be revenge, not reward. But I found I didn't care that much when Leah pulled me down again and nibbled that pout off my lips, still with that grin on hers.

"For realsies, though. What kinda tank were you planning for?" I asked once she'd released my face.

Leah chewed her lips for a moment, but instead of answering, she picked me up by the waist and relocated me onto my own legs. I hurriedly reinforced my lame leg with my tail again, when she climbed to her feet and tugged me along towards the tombstones.

The first and most weathered one read <Paul Paquette 2000-2027, First Into The Trench, First To Pay In Blood>

Well, that wasn't ominous at all. Someone who'd taken point against an incursion?

When I looked up at Leah, I found she was still processing her answer, rather than paying attention to the tombstone. I happily hooked my arm through hers.

"So, I'm kind of split three ways on the nature of the next tank in the first place," she said, "I do want a hella tough brawler, both because I need one to anchor the battle and because such tanks are the mainstay of the Warforge Technologies catalog, but they're really expensive."

"How much?" I asked as we walked over to the next headstone—and this was a proper one, with an actual grave. I realized that many were just memorials, empty of bodies. Between the first epitaph, and the fact that the Antithesis rarely left bodies to be buried, I thought that maybe these were people the village had lost to the Antithesis.

The second epitaph, above an actual grave, reinforced that impression:

<Renny Paquette 1991-2027, She Who Carried Us Beyond Victory, She Who Persevered Beyond Reason>

Had Renny Paquette dragged the injured home before she'd succumbed to her own? I wondered whether Renny and Paul had been siblings, or whether they'd been married.

"Well, I can get the cheapest ones for as little as a few thousand, but their mobility is absolute crap. I'd basically be leaving them to rust on whatever battlefield I summoned them, because chances are they couldn't even cross the terrain to the next highway. Or if they could, they'd be so slow that it'd be cheaper to just go and kill another Antithesis hive in that time."

"Huh."

"But they would be absolute beasts wherever I put them."

The third memorial was also a proper grave.

<Sean Jims 2009-2028, Bright Eyes Ever Onward Even In Sickness>

Young. And one year late? But I didn't think he would've been buried here if he hadn't been part of whatever got everyone their memorials. Sean had probably died from medical complications well after they'd won, but it would have taken weeks at most. Enough time that he'd either have recovered, or he'd have died.

That told me that they'd attacked the Antithesis, rather than the other way around, and close to new year's—winter was a good time to engage a nest. The alien plague never rested, but it did slow when food was scarce. It also roamed farther to find biomass, and to the Antithesis, villages were nothing but stockpiles of biomass on two feet. Plenty reasons for a settlement to take matters into their own hands before matters took the settlement in hand.

"And the mobile ones?"

"Upwards of thirty thousand points, and only with the bare minimum gear. The fit I'm thinking of would cost me fifty thousand or more."

"And we don't have anywhere near that."

"Nope. Which is why I'm considering a fourth Hatchet, set up with strategic computers and a suite of disruptive Antithesis countermeasures."

"Don't your Hatchets already have strategic computers in them?"

<Frank Buttounis 1994-2037, YOLO Was His Mantra, YOLO Was His Dynamite. Boom.>

Real millennial. Fun dude, I was sure. A real blast. And he died in 2037, exactly ten years later. A second incursion? A different nest?

"No, they've each got a tactical computer, which lets them mesh their squad and manage their guns. They're also responsible for analyzing the immediate surroundings, responding to ambushes and so on. But they're neither command computing units, nor are they suitable to handle the calculations for controlling an entire battlefield."

"Which means that you wouldn't be able to expand your operations beyond the current number of Hatchets?"

"One more Hatchet will complete the squad and that'll still be fine. But if I want more squads, or if I want my mechs to fight on multiple fronts, with brawlers in the middle and Hatchets nipping around the periphery, then I need a dedicated command unit that is powerful enough to see everything and simulate strategies."

"Especially with the big wave being several hundred thousand models strong at this point."

"Yes."

"And I'm guessing a Hatchet command unit is cheaper than a brawling one?"

"Yes. I won't need a big one either—I don't and won't have too many mechs for a while, so the limited space a Hatchet offers will suffice for both the strategic computers and the countermeasures."

The next headstone was situated beneath hanging branches full of healthy green leaves. When I lifted them away to read the engraving, the air filled with a grassy scent that reminded me of the Antithesis's death smell, but…cleaner and less moldy. Earthy, both figuratively and literally.

<Bungee McMurdock 2020-2037, He Who Never Knew Where To Rest, But Always Knew When To Rest>

Another young one, and an empty grave. That was a punchline in itself and it brought a grin to my face. It seemed like Baie-Comeau had developed a fun strain of gallows humor by this second…nest extermination, perhaps?

"Speaking of which, what kinda countermeasures?"

"E-War against technology, and the samurai-equivalent of pepper spray and tear gas against the Antithesis. Pheromone neutralizers, scent jammers in the form of ridiculously smelly compounds, flashbangs, speakers blasting hundreds of decibels, that kind of thing. I can install more esoteric ones as well, such as electric field generators to mess with the electroreceptors of higher-tier models."

"Hmm…those strategic computers are sounding like a better and better idea, considering that I can stuff such payloads into bombs and missiles, the dropping of which I'd have to coordinate with yours."

Leah's eyebrows rose. "I hadn't even thought of that, but of course."

<Brand Bytewright 2020-2037, Never Met A PCB He Couldn't Rizz, frfr.>

Gen Z in full regalia. Bro born too late, but cooked a golden age his own, no cap.

I couldn't help but notice that this one had also died real young. Perhaps the fact that there were so many pregnant women in the village was not a coincidence, huh? It did look like they had a bit of a…turnover, even with a samurai protecting them.

I was starting to get an inkling that, perhaps, this memorial was a bit more exclusive than just for those who died fighting the Antithesis. But then, I wondered, what qualified one to be immortalized in this sanctuary?

"And the third type of tank?" I asked Leah. She was paying attention to the graves at this point, and by the way her eyes flicked back and forth between the headstones, I figured she was drawing similar conclusions to mine.

"A logistical one with a foundry inside. Something that can craft ordnance on the fly, like your Myriad but bigger."

I nodded. "That sounds like a necessity, long term—I hadn't gotten around to it yet, but our points efficiency was terrible."

"I noticed, yup. Hella bad. That's why I'm considering it already, even though the original plan was to get more offensive oomph for the squad first."

"I see…"

<Yunni Hikata XXXX-2037, She Spoke In Works, Not Words>

Birth date unknown, huh? Interesting epitaph, too; a mute person, perhaps.

That made four immortalized deaths in one year, though. I wondered how many others had died?

"The question," Leah added, "is just where the foundry should go. I could put it in its own mech, which would be great for the Hatchets, or into the brawler, which will expend as much ammunition by itself as the entire squad of Hatchets. But if I do that, then the Hatchets will be difficult to resupply."

Shaking my head, I said, "Not really. You can leave that to me, since I'll be the most mobile combatant on the field. I can just nip on over any time. It won't be as point-efficient to keep buying them the ammunition, but at least they're not using expensive missiles."

"Right. And as long as the Hatchets keep to the edges, you won't be too exposed reloading them, either."

"Yeah." I looked down and twiddled with my tail. "If you do get your main battle tank, are you going to move your pod into it?" I asked. I kinda liked Daddy-Long-Legs and our cabin inside.

I didn't want to split up and lose that…cuddly intimacy.

Leah immediately understood, of course. She nudged my chin up so I could see her reassuring smile, and wrapped her fingers around mine to stop me from fidgeting.

"We'd move over, Tinea," she said softly. "Together. There'd be two airlocks, too. One at the top, so you can take flight more easily."

Deeply comforted, I let myself lean against her front and felt…welcomed. It was a magical thing. A balm so soothing that my broken soul couldn't not soak it up. All the fears and anxieties that had always kept me isolated just couldn't bring their teeth to bear against Leah.

I rose up and pressed a kiss to her collar bone, because words were too unwieldy to express all of that.

***

Leah hugged the bashful creature to her chest and laid her chin atop Tinea's head. She was having a hard time keeping her lips from twitching into a grin, what with the ridiculous display of adorableness.

The folder of impossibly sweet, cute, and just generally endearing footage of her girlfriend had long since outgrown the limited memory of her cybereye. She'd never admit it, but she already enjoyed scrolling those clips more than she did scrolling through social media.

Maybe she'd have to make some sort of diary from it all? Perhaps as a gift to Tinea a few years down the line, so she could see her journey through the eyes of another. That seemed hella intimate, though. It'd take the right kind of vibe for that, wouldn't it?

Meanwhile, Leah continued playing with another design, another present. A choker made to complement the forcefield emitter she'd already given to Tinea.

Its gem looked a lot like the burst remains of a certain hunting rifle, suspended in amber.

And much like that rifle's ultimate honor and demise, it was sacrificial in nature. Should the forcefield threaten to collapse from too powerful an attack, the choker's heart piece would absorb the energies instead and bend them towards retaliation, even if it burned out in the process.

Leah was quite determined to give Tinea defenses that didn't crumple any easier than her own planned brawler's would. The silent memorial around them, graves empty and occupied both, only reinforced her determination.

***