“Bob’s finished with his assignment, we can move in now,” I reported as I headed towards the nearest working Kodiak.

  “He destroyed that thing by himself?” Hel asked in disbelief.

  “That tank’s nothing. He once punched a Forty-Four in the face,” I exclaimed as I entered the vehicle.

  “Are we just going to rush in? What if they detonate early?” Nora asked as she rushed in after me. “And what about the civilians?”

  “I’m already flooding the area with squirrels, and they have a very simple message: ‘Civilians take cover in your homes and stay off the street until the all-clear signal is given. Council soldiers, throw down your weapons and leave the area immediately. No mercy will be shown to those that remain’.”

  “And… you’re ok with that? Killing those people?” Nora whispered.

  “I don’t fucking like it,” I growled. “I prefer to show mercy to people, but if the choice is between killing professional soldiers who refuse to surrender and letting thousands of civilians die, I’ll do what’s necessary.”

  Angeline sprinted onto the Kodiak, slamming the door controls as she passed. “Hel and Humboldt are already set up in the next vehicle, ready to go!”

  “Then let’s go,” I declared.

  The Kodiak trembled slightly as it left the ground, but it was the acceleration we really felt as I rocketed towards sector fifty-two.

  “Nyx, please connect the comms in this Kodiak with the one Hel and Sharron are in,” I whispered.

  Done

  “Alright all, I don’t have much of a plan here. I’m going to have the Kodiaks smash through the enemy lines, destroying any active tanks still in the area, then have them surround the pillar. I don’t know exactly how many soldiers they have stationed around, so we may come out under fire. Any questions, comments, or changes you’d suggest? Make it quick we’re only about a minute out.”

  “What about the bombs?” Sharron’s voice echoed out of one of the Kodiak’s speakers. “They could have orders to detonate rather than risk being overrun.”

  “I’m going to pair two bears in each squad with a beaver, which’ll walk them through the disarming process. We’re going to prioritize minimizing the damage over complete disarmament first, but I honestly don’t have a way to stop them if they want to detonate before we land.”

  Angeline raised her hand. “Yes? Angeline? You know that’s not necessary here.”

  “I know, but it pays to be orderly. Can I borrow a couple beavers? I’m sending my squirrels in ahead of us and they may be able to swarm the detonators before we arrive, but they need to know what to look for,”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Nyx?”

  “Already done,” Nyx announced, using a nearby bear. “I’ve passed control of ten over to your AI. Their knowledge should be accessible now.”

  “Thank you!” Angeline declared, before flipping down her oversized goggles. “Sending the first wave in now!”

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  “Everyone else, prepare to engage,” I yelled.

  While the bears went through their final weapon checks, I rerouted the forward camera array to one of the displays so we could see what was going on.

  The Kodiaks came in low, almost at street level. They had to come in that low in order to use their main guns. As soon as we cleared the last corner and got a line of sight on the Sector Fifty-Two pillar, a machine gun nest setup across the canal opened up on us. The heavy weapon wasn’t much of a concern, but the tank next to it was. Before the main battle tank could fully bring its gun to bear, the Kodiak fired.

  The coilgun round easily pierced the tank’s turret, detonating something inside, before continuing out the back before embedding itself deep in the street.

  “Nyx, switch the Kodiaks to some sort of timed explosive rounds, like I used with the super heavy railgun back in Seattle. I don’t care what it costs, just keep the damage isolated to our targets!” I yelled.

  Got it.

  As the convoy sped through the streets, ignoring the sporadic gunfire from the surrounding buildings, Angeline jumped up. “Explosives were chained together by wires. The squirrels are chewing through them as we speak, but there’ll still be some live explosives by the time we arrive.”

  “Just do what you can!” Hel’s voice echoed out of the speakers. “We’ll clean up the rest once we arrive.”

  The Kodiaks screamed out of the streets, into the narrow plaza surrounding the block-wide support pillar. There were a dozen or so tanks on station, which all opened fire as we arrived. From inside the vehicle, I only felt the faintest vibration when one of their high explosive shells detonated on the hull. Nearly immune to the tanks' cannons, the Kodiaks made short work of the enemy armor, quickly devastating them with quick, precise bursts.

  The collapse of the council’s defenses was further accelerated by the arrival of Bob, returning from his tussle with the super heavy elsewhere in the sector. He fell upon the backline of armor like a hammer, rending armor like it was tissue paper.

  Within less than a minute, we were through. There was still a lot of fire coming from entrenched areas around the pillar, both machine gun nests and regular soldiers. I couldn’t imagine what they’d been offered, or threatened with, to continue holding the line after seeing what we did to the tanks.

  As the Kodiak did its best imitation of a power slide, coming to a stop sideways to the pillar and beside it, I yelled. “Heavy, take the ‘Lightshow’ and give us covering fire.”

  The chonky polar bear didn’t need any more instructions. He slammed into the side of the slowly lowering ramp and forced it down faster. Casually shrugging off hundreds of rounds while he waddled out the back, Heavy ignored the enemy until he got onto solid ground. Then he turned towards the pillar.

  The rotary laser cannon in his hands let out an electric whine as it spooled up before releasing a devastating barrage at the enemy. I couldn’t see exactly what he was shooting at, but the incoming fire all but stopped.

  “Alright, time to do this,” Nora mumbled, as if to psych herself up.

  I just patted her on the shoulder as I passed and stepped directly out of the vehicle. “Sweep and clear the entire area!” I yelled over the roar of the laser cannon. “Prioritize disarming the explosives!”

  As fast as the bears were storming the area, Hel was faster. The blue-skinned woman had darted forward while Heavy was still setting up. She sprayed the area with some sort of high-pressure sprayer mounted to her wrists. Jumping from defensive position to defensive position ,she saturated the area with her weapons, leaving frozen bodies in her wake.

  I shuddered when I came up to the first one, a man still clutching his rifle, fear locked on his face. I really hoped her deep freezing process killed instantly.

  Behind Hel came Sharron in her new suit. She was nowhere near as agile as Hel, but she was way more agile than before. Her Class III power armor allowed her to sprint slightly faster than normal and still had the same punch as the titanic Class II version.

  I could imagine the defender’s dread as she approached. As unstoppable as Bob, tentacles burning and rending everything in her path.

  Nora and Angeline, on the other hand, stuck to the rear. Not that I could blame them. Nora’s mechanical legs could pulverise antithesis into the high twenties, but I could imagine she wasn’t eager to try them out on a human.

  Angeline’s main way of fighting was her squirrels, which were currently absolutely crawling over the pillar, searching for explosives. Their main way of fighting was biting, and Angeline’s brain was fast enough to catch every bite from every squirrel. Not a pleasant experience.

  Since Hel and Sharron led the charge clockwise around the pillar, I went counter-clockwise. Bob joined me just before I went around the corner, and I used him as cover from the incoming fire. And to avoid watching people die.

  I knew it was necessary; it didn’t mean I liked it.

  In the end, cutting down the defenders turned out to be easy, almost too easy. I found the main wiring harness and remote detonator halfway down the second side, abandoned. I guess some of the military engineers had more sense than others.

  Since the entire force had been comms dark, the rest of the defenders probably weren’t even aware that their last stand was completely pointless. They weren’t buying time. They were dying for nothing. The idea of that made me a little sick.

  When Hel and Sharron finished their sweep ten minutes later, they found me still standing there. Standing over the pile of wires and smashed circuit boards.

  “Are we clear?” Hel asked as she ran up, breathing heavily.

  “We were clear the entire time. The engineers abandoned the detonator assembly and ran off. We were worried for nothing,” I whispered quietly.

  “You okay?” Sharron asked.

  “No,” I mumbled, before I gathered myself together and stood up straight.

  “But it’s fine. You know why? Because I’m going to take it out on the people that really deserve it,” I announced. “Now, what are we going to do about the council?”

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