Chapter 163

“Chi-Ha to all units. Look alive! The party’s about to start, and the guests are definitely uninvited!”

A good chunk of time had passed since the last signs of human civilization had vanished from their sensors. Inside his Armored Vehicle, Teiro glared at the exterior monitors while barking into the comms. In the passage ahead, a line of Tanks had their muzzles leveled at the distant gloom, arranged in a tidy, staggered formation to ensure no one shot their friends in the back.

“Tiger 1, copy that. We’ve got your back, Teiro,” Alan’s voice crackled through.

“Panther 1 here. All units are in position and ready to rumble,” Heinlein added.

Teiro wiped his sweaty palms on his pants—stupid nerves—and stole a glance at the Tactical Screen. It was updating in real-time, showing a swarm of red dots pulsing like a literal wave of malice just a few corridors away.

[[ LINKAGE RECONFIRMED: SYNCHRONIZED ]]

[[ GENERAL ORDER: LOAD SPECIAL ARMOR-PIERCING SHELLS. PREPARE FOR HORIZONTAL FIRE. ]]

[[ INTEGRATED AIMING ASSIST: CALIBRATION COMPLETE ]]

Teiro felt the BISHOP interface click into place, feeding him data streams from every vehicle’s Fire Control System. It was a dizzying rush of math—calculating air density, humidity, and even the heat-warping of the barrels to cook up the perfect ballistic recipe for destruction.

“Lead enemy group is currently entering Side Road F422. They’re one thousand meters from the Main Passage, Mr. Teiro. Nine hundred… eight hundred…”

“Targeting’s done,” Marl chimed in, her fingers dancing across her console. “I couldn't get a proper Threat Assessment, so I just prioritized the Expected Hit Probability. You’d better not miss!”

“Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on. Here we go!”

Teiro narrowed his eyes, his world narrowing down to the targeting reticle. Koume’s countdown ticked lower and lower until it hit the magic number.

“First Wave Bombardment—FIRE!”

Twenty Tanks spat dragon-breath into the dark. The shells screamed out in intervals of a tenth of a second, the shots blending into one continuous, ear-shattering roar. For a split second, the Muzzle Flashes turned the gloomy passage into high-noon, revealing rusted girders and crumbling walls that might have looked nice before the apocalypse hit.

[[ WARHEAD CONTROL: SIDE BLAST ACTIVATED ]]

The shells, moving at ridiculous supersonic speeds, reached their mark before the sound even caught up. Using the same tech as Plum’s Railgun, the shells used a secondary explosive charge to kick their trajectory thirty degrees mid-flight, screaming into the side road and slamming right into the center of the enemy pack.

“Impact confirmed,” Koume reported. “Radar shows six Motion Signatures have flatlined. However, the rest are still coming.”

“See? I told you they were useful!” Marl cheered.

“Easy for you to say! My brain feels like it’s being put through a blender!” Teiro yelled back. “Second Wave—GIVE ’EM HELL!”

The first line of Tanks rolled back, letting the twenty fresh vehicles behind them surge forward. Because of the Railgun’s finicky hardware, they couldn't just spam shots without melting their own barrels—just like on the ship, one warped rail meant you were driving a very expensive paperweight.

“Second Wave impact confirmed. Four Stationary Responses. The accuracy was… adequate, I suppose,” Koume mused.

“Tough crowd! It’s a lot harder to hit stuff when you have to worry about air and dust, Koume!”

“Well, it’s not like we can steer these shells as many times as Plum’s,” Marl said, then frowned. “Oh, one Tiger is showing a Yellow Status. Sensor glitch. Probably the shockwave from the last blast rattling its teeth.”

“Crap, I knew we were too cramped. This wasn't exactly what these things were designed for… Third Wave—OPEN UP!”

The Muzzle Fire turned the corridor into a furnace again as the shells sought out the WIND swarm still bottlenecked in the side road. Koume droned out the kill count while Marl painted new targets as fast as the computer could process them.

“The lead group has reached the Main Passage, Mr. Teiro,” Koume said, her voice impossibly dry. “It is quite the spectacle. They look like a pack of starving men swarming a lone beauty.”

Teiro blinked. “Copy that. Also, what the hell kind of analogy is that?! No one is that thirsty!”

“Chi-Ha to all units. Shift to Plan B. I repeat, go to Plan B!”

“Tiger 1, copy,” Alan’s voice came in, sounding far too thoughtful. “Actually, I think she’s right. A real beauty is worth the hustle.”

“Panther 1, acknowledged,” Heinlein sighed. “I would like to remain professional and offer no comment.”

“Stop chatting and start driving!” Teiro screamed.

Following the playbook, the Tanks began a coordinated retreat. They kept their thickest armor pointed at the enemy, backing away at full throttle like a group of very angry, very heavy crabs.

“Stick to the plan! Only feed data back to the Chi-Ha when you’re using Special Armor-Piercing Shells. Otherwise, use your own sights!”

“Teiro, the Chi-Ha is ready to fire,” Marl said, before her brow furrowed. “But seriously, something’s wrong. They said there were only a hundred of these things.”

“There’s way more than a hundred,” Teiro grumbled. “Ugh, I’d kill for a Wide-area Scan right about now.”

“Let us hope NASA’s intel isn't entirely useless,” Koume said. “By the way, things are about to get loud.”

No sooner had she said it than the darkness of the Main Passage was vaporized by a strobe light of blue and white. The enemy was firing back. Beams of raw energy hissed through the air, turning the corridor into a deadly disco.

“Gah! Too bright! Too bright!”

The sheer density of the incoming fire was terrifying. The pale blue light reflecting off the WIND swarm made them look like an unstoppable tide of ghosts. Teiro subconsciously leaned back in his seat as if he could hide from the monitors.

“Tiger 1 to Chi-Ha! The shields are melting faster than a popsicle in July! We need to scrap the Panther rotation or they’re gonna get popped!”

“Are you serious? Whoa, yeah, the front line is glowing yellow!”

“Shield consumption is twenty-five percent higher than projected, Mr. Teiro,” Koume noted. “Orders?”

“Change of plans! No point in losing the whole fleet just for a Force Reconnaissance. Chi-Ha to all units: Switch to Plan F! Tigers take point, Panthers stay back!”

Teiro watched the shield gauges on his Tactical Screen with a grimace. The Panthers just didn't have the juice to soak up this kind of punishment.

“Panther 1, copy. We’ll move ahead and set up for Indirect Fire.”

“Do it. Marl, what’s the status of the swarm?”

“They’re still coming like zombies to a mall. Our physical rounds are chewing through their armor, and we’re racking up kills, but… I don’t know. I’ve got a bad feeling. We might not be doing as much damage as we think.”

“What? Why?”

“Later,” Marl snapped. “Focus on the shooting!”

Teiro didn't like that tone, but he didn't have time to argue. Requests for ballistic math were flooding his BISHOP interface, and the battle was getting chaotic.

“Teiro! A Tiger just threw a tread! The line is stalling!”

One of the Tank icons on his screen froze. The other Tigers slowed down to avoid a pile-up. Within seconds, the crew scrambled out of the crippled machine and sprinted for the nearest friendly vehicle.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Teiro yelled. “You’ll turn those guys into paste with the muzzle blast! Dammit, we were so close… Panther 1, where’s that support?!”

“Panther 1 here. Almost there… just a second… Okay, raining lead!”

A [[ READY TO LAUNCH ]] prompt flashed on Teiro’s screen. He slammed his finger onto the confirm button, feeding the fire coordinates back to the support team.

“This should trip them up—OW! MY EARS!”

The exterior Mike picked up the detonation and blasted it directly into Teiro’s headset. His vision swam as his eardrums did their best impression of a ringing bell.

The High-Explosive Shells from the Panthers arched over the Chi-Ha and the front-line Tigers, plunging into the WIND swarm. Unlike the armor-piercing rounds, these didn't need speed to kill. Upon impact, the shells detonated, their Plasma Expansion Bodies turning metal casings into white-hot shrapnel that shredded anything in a ten-meter radius. Every so often, a piece of debris would clatter against Teiro’s hull with a sickening thwack.

“Use the volume limiter, you moron,” Marl grumbled, reaching over to adjust Teiro’s headset.

“Oh. Right. Future tech. Super convenient,” Teiro muttered, rubbing his sore ears. “Wait, didn't we have that on Earth too? Koume, status!”

“The crew has been recovered. They are banged up but alive, Mr. Teiro. The abandoned tank has self-destructed to prevent capture. The Tiger units are back on the move, and the gap is widening again. The WIND have slowed down… though they appear quite… disorganized. Perplexed, even.”

“Confused? The WIND?”

Teiro stared at the screen, but to him, it just looked like a giant, angry blob of red dots.

“Whatever. We can figure out why they’re acting weird when we look at the tapes later. Let’s get through that bulkhead!”

The best thing about a Tank isn't the gun—it's the fact that you can leave. There was no point in a fair fight with a bunch of blade-wielding monsters. If you can shoot and scoot, you shoot and scoot.

“We seal the bulkhead, loop around, and hit ’em from another Route. It’s the ultimate Parthian Shot.”

Teiro felt pretty smug. Their horse-archer tactics were working almost perfectly. Sure, they’d lost a tank, but it was within the 'acceptable losses' column of his mental spreadsheet.

“……Oh?”

Teiro’s smug grin vanished. He’d spent enough time with Koume to know that when she made that specific 'Oh' sound, his life was about to get much more complicated.

“What is it now, Koume-san?” he asked, his voice dripping with dread.

“It appears we have a slight complication, Mr. Teiro.”

“Complication. Right. Bad way or 'worst possible' way?”

“The latter, I'm afraid.” Koume turned her head one hundred and eighty degrees to look at him while her hands stayed perfectly still on the wheel. “For reasons unknown, the bulkhead has begun to close. It will be fully sealed in thirty seconds—long before we can reach it.”

Teiro and Marl sat there, mouths hanging open. Koume turned back to the front and continued in her usual, terrifyingly calm monotone.

“It appears we have been locked out. Any suggestions, Mr. Teiro?”