Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Seventy-Five - The Worth of a Human

"Studies indicate that 11% to 20% of veterans who served in frontline roles have experienced PTSD in a given year. Likewise, 15% to 35% of Antithesis conflict veterans experience PTSD within a year of their departure from the front lines.

Data for the Samurai/Vanguard is limited, but self-admitted cases of PTSD amongst that group suggest that only 1% to 3% of Samurai/Vanguard suffer from PTSD-like symptoms.

Whether this is due to the process by which they are chosen or not is uncertain."

--VA-PTSD.RD.GOV, Prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the Combat Populace, 2046

***

"Alright, you good?" I asked as Shy landed on the ground.

She patted her knees clear of dust, then shifted the hood of her cloak back up and over her head. Her clothes were... a bit of a mess, to be honest, but that's what happened when you were flung into a tree.

At least she was partially armoured. She had a padded undersuit beneath that poncho, with some harder looking plates over the chest with a few little pockets here and there. Basic tactical gear stuff, and all very obviously Samurai-made.

"Lady Shy wished to reiterate that she is well."

"Yeah, that's good," I said as I backed my mech up and away from the tree she'd been stuck in. I'd used my mech as a sort of ladder to give her something to climb down. There were plenty of handholds where the armoured plates on the exterior of my mech had gaps. "Look, I can't sit around here for much longer. Will you be okay if I leave you behind, or do you want to come back to the Big Gun?"

I didn't have a fantastic idea of how dangerous the area was, but I could guess that it wasn't that bad. There hadn't been many flyers coming down from above. Those that I did see were all shooting out in the same direction I'd come from, and most of those were way, way up in the air.

Unless Shy here tried taking massive potshots at them, she was probably going to pass unnoticed. That meant she could probably pick out the targets she wanted.

The Model Thirty-One was probably a target of opportunity for her.

I was... way newer as a samurai, but I'd been in the thick of it from the start. Shy here was a more normal sort, chilling out at a lower, more reasonable tech level for a longer time. She probably had a whole life that didn't involve samurai shit.

Couldn't fault her for that. She was here now, doing her thing. Shy hopped on the spot a couple of times, dislodging a few small branches stuck to her poncho, then she checked on her guns, each one rising up from under her cloak so that she could look them over. The way they moved was fluid and fast, and I suspected that she was wired into the controls for them directly.

I saw her mouth move behind her scarf a little. "Lady Shy is thankful for your intervention, and more so for allowing her to eliminate that higher-tier model. Having said that, she doesn't require any additional assistance."

"Cool," I said. I called over that mecha-carrier. It was hovering not too far from where I was dropped off. A few model ones had zipped around it, but it wasn't biological enough for them to nibble at, and it wasn't hostile, so they treated it as just an obstacle and mostly left it alone.

I was sure that wouldn't be the case if a bigger, smarter model flew by, but for now it was safe enough. It turned, then started moving my way at a slow, careful pace.

"If you've got any problems, just gimme a call. Your AI buddy can ping Myalis, yeah?"

Shy nodded once. She pushed her shotguns down, then gave me a small bow. Then she kind of just... stood there for a moment. I could feel the awkwardness wafting off of her like a weird smell before she turned and scampered away. She went invisible, but that didn't hide how weird she was.

"That girl's a little strange," I muttered after shutting my exterior speakers off.

Most Vanguard fit a set of criteria that don't comply with normative human behaviour. It's natural, therefore, for them to stand out as a little strange to the average person.

Normal, huh? I shook my head, then moved myself over to the side a little so that I was in a clearer spot for the carrier to come down and grab onto my mech.

Once I was clamped in, I shot upwards, angled towards the Big Gun and shot off in that direction. I had Myalis connect with the tactical net that we were using to coordinate our AA. In theory we wouldn't look like a juicy alien target, but I didn't want to test it.

I was pretty sure I could eat a few rounds from the smaller AA guns without any real issue in my mech, but if one of those bigger rockets slammed into me, I'd be a cooked cat before long, and my own 30mm guns probably had enough juice at this altitude to punch right through whatever armour my mech had, or at least it would mess it up.

Better safe than punctured.

On approach, I noticed a long train of antithesis rushing towards the south. They were spread out in a long line, most of them were flyers. Model Ones, a few Model Elevens, but there were plenty rushing along on the ground as well.

The line ended some hundred metres from the Big Gun, where a few fireteams with machine guns were ripping into them. I noticed Hedgehog, Princess and Knight there, along with Tankette in her tank. A constant barrage of mortar fire was punching holes in the formation.

I flew around. As much as I might have been tempted to land in the middle of it all, it did look like the newbies had things in hand at the moment. Dropping in now would only disrupt things, and I might get blasted in the crossfire. Better to leave them the work and the points.

Instead I aimed for the inside of the camp and swooped in for a landing. A few soldiers were spooked, but they calmed down when they realized that I was in a giant robot cat, not some large plant alien swinging down to make a meal out of them.

A quick check showed that Gomorrah was nearby, in one of the command rooms, though she was on her way out.

I opened the cockpit of my mech, unhooked myself from the controls, and hopped out. "Hey!" I called out.

Gomorrah changed directions slightly, heading closer to me. "You're back," she said. "Grasshopper's friend is okay?"

"Yeah. She told you about it?" I asked.

Gomorrah nodded. "I saw you leaving on the tactical net, so I asked. You should have reported it in, but that you didn't isn't too strange."

"Yeah, Shy--the samurai that needed a hand--wasn't in a terrible spot, but she was out on her own. I left her there on her own too, but I think she'll be able to figure things out."

"Good," Gomorrah said. "I might have you run out to a few more samurai that need help. We have some antithesis resistance moving this way, but... it's well organised."

"And that's good?" I asked.

"They're marching in what passes for neat rows for them," she said. "It makes it easy to rip them apart with artillery. Once the skies have cleared out some more we'll have the airforce in to reinforce us, and that'll be it for them."

That was pretty good. "So, some samurai need help?" I asked. "How's the situation overall?"

"Three casualties," she said.

"That's it?" I asked. I was sure there had to be more. Were they way underreported? With this many jugheads running around with guns and grenades, I couldn't believe that only three had died.

"Samurai casualties," she clarified.

"Ah. Are we not checking the other casualties?"

She shrugged. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but they don't quite matter as much. Not when we need every force multiplier we can get. Besides, it's hard to keep track of millions. Keeping track of some two hundred samurai is comparatively easy."

Something twisted in my gut at that, and it didn't take a bachelors in ethics to figure out what was wrong with that entire thing. "That's kinda fucked up, Gom."

"I know," she said. "But right now, there are more samurai defending small towns and remote villages than PMCs or soldiers. I mean... there are more towns being defended by us than by the armed forces. They need numbers, logistics. We don't. Every one of us lost means another small town or frontier lost. It's... a difficult calculus if you think of every number as human, so we can't afford to."

"That's a big ask, isn't it?"

"I think it's why my religion considers us saints. It's that much easier to think of each samurai as larger than life that way." She started walking again. "I need to replenish the ammunition in some of my AA platforms. Then I'll be flying out to assist some samurai that might need it. I'd suggest that you do the same."

That sounded like a decent idea. I stretched my neck back and looked up into the sky first though.

It was still raining aliens, but at least it was petering out, and the clouds were returning. Soon it would be overcast as usual.

***