Post by ingen on Aug 28, 2023 17:17:08 GMT
Him - Zetyans
Beef - Canton
In the dark gloom of the far side of the Sarnath System, something was moving.
Marchand, the more populous and wealthy of the two planets in the system, had long been under Imperial control. Officially it was independent, but ever since the great battles over Marchand the system had lain under the hulls of alien warships, flying the Jade, Cantonese, Imaginese and Minevan flags and a dozen others aside. Suborned by force of arms to SAGA's cause, Marchand's trade had continued uninterrupted despite the ongoing violence below.
Zdeno, the mysterious and storm-lashed twin to Marchand, had lain silent, the Zdenese warships battered and bruised. For more than two years it had been ignored, fenced off and left to its own strange devices, but now in the darkness something was moving...
The watchful eyes of the Axis were not blind. Quietly, but clearly, their ranks began to swell in anticipation. The war for the Sarnath System was far from over.
For the Zetyans on Marchand, the conflict had been a largely academic matter, as far as Zetyans were inclined to describe anything as 'academic'. Although technically aligned with CONA and thus anti-SAGA and so aligned against the yokari and their puppet government, the Zetyans still did a healthy trade on the planet, much of it facilitated by the 'lightbulb goblins'.
They had watched, and sometimes heckled, as the brutal and low-intensity conflict had ebbed and flowed, but this morning things had become somewhat more serious. Locals had tried to break into the facility, hurling firebombs and shooting through windows and even briefly forcing open one of the rear work access doors. Happily, quick thinking and judicious use of a Weedmaster 5000 by one of the staff members put paid to that incursion, and now the Zetyans had hastily barricaded where they could. The building was a flurry of activity, some productive and some not, as the curious many-eyed offworlders went about their business.
The sound of gunfire on the street outside barely elicited a reaction from the more senior Zetyans - it had become so common over the last couple of hours. The inane chittering of the runts, however, was vindicated when an upper window cracked and fell apart, chunks of plastiglass thudding sonorously to the ground. Through the hole came two figures, half falling and half flying. The first landed heavily, cursing loudly and rolling through the debris to stand upright, a handgun clutched at the ready. The second, much smaller, landed lightly atop a table and began screeching at the top of its lungs.
The first figure was easily recognisable as a yokari. Green, middle-aged, with a trim goatee and the familiar glowing orbs, he was bleeding from a few light scratches and was panting heavily. He was dressed in a pea jacket and civilian clothes, in contrast to his companion.
Approximately two feet tall, the little being was clad head to toe in flak armour, a helmet topped with oversized metal ears hiding its face. It had six limbs and was stood on two of them, the other four waving as it screamed incoherent obscenities at the Zetyans.
"Quiet, Wangmo," called the yokari, taking in the assembled Zetyans around him with an almost-disguised sense of unease.
"My apologies for disturbing you," he said to the crowd at large "but the weather outside has turned."
----
The Zetyan installation was as much of an anomaly as it was an impressive sight.
Not because of size - it was just a modest office coupled with a warehouse and a repairs workshop practically duct-taped on top, a glorified in/out button of various goods for the Zettish megaconglomerate Kaida'kol Arms Manufacturing. If anything, only the Zetyans called it an 'installation', to most it was simply 'the gun office' or 'the place pest control should burn to the ground'. Neither was it output - until today, they had an invisible cap on their output, both from the Yokari eye in the sky and the xenophobic Marchander businesses to their left and right. To get too big would be suicide, yet too small to be their doom. Staying within the guidelines, however, let them be tolerably existant within the Caracarian jewel.
Most would never expect a business from a CONA nation to open shop on a SAGA nation at all, let alone one from the known fanatics from Laptev. But there was a reason - Kaida'kol had sold to Imaginarium at TRIDEX, and through chance connections managed to gain purchase in TIERZ. Expanding to their neighbor, to any other business, would be a lost cause, but Kaida'kol only saw green and gold. Opening a branch on Marchand was supposed to be the testing ground, future expansion throughout the Canton banking on if it had worked. An 'academic' plan, said one executive at their first internal meeting.
Then the locals started throwing firebombs at the windows.
To say many things had happened in the last few hours that shouldn't have would be the most succinct way of putting it. Their guns were supposed to be pointed at the goblins, not their makers, but several 10mils through the roof proved that point wrong. Weedmasters were supposed to be used on runts and rockrats, but the blood and unmentionables practically caking the outside of the rear work door proved it worked fine otherwise.
The windows were supposed to be bulletproof, and then two bodies were flung into the first floor install shop.
The room was abuzz when they had entered so violently, some going about their jobs and some going about making improvised weapons or barricades. Once the chaos subdued, the cacophony of the runt workers nearly exploded upon seeing what looked like themselves in full plate and with a gun, only shushed by a few brandishing weapons and a particularly off-kilter looking one revving a bloody Weedmaster once or twice.
A moment of silence passed, the two parties regarding each other through suspicion and narrowed eyes. Most were in civilian clothes, a few with improvised helmets, chest pieces, or equipment 'repatriated' from their own shop. While they had guns, they were mostly handguns-even barring tight restrictions on firearms shipments, any that were even present may as well have been rotting in storage. The only ones that looked passable for anything bigger were improvised machines scrapped from junk and gun parts almost seeming as if grease formed their constituent atoms. However, after the standoff, one of them spoke - a Zetyan in a spiffy business suit tinted shit brown, whose hand hovered dangerously ready near a holstered pistol.
"...yeah?" He asked sarcastically, eyes flitting from them to the window behind glassy sunscreen domes. The adults began to slightly loosen, though the runts continued to quietly 'ooh' and 'aah' and only being silenced by the suited Zetyan motioning for them to barricade the once-called 'window'. "You mind filling us in? Cause the locals aren't helping."
The newcomer hid his discomfort well. Nobody could stand in the midst of a horde of armed and agitated Zetyans without feeling a flutter of panic in their gut, but years of self-discipline went into his next answer.
"Of course. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Matsudaira Takeaki, Strategic Content Coordinator at the Cantonese Embassy."
He said this with a completely straight face, despite the gun in his hand and the blood on his coat. "It's l-" he began, pausing as a particularly loud explosion rattled the remaining windowpanes.
"It's looking bad out there. The Cult have launched a major attack. It looks like it's city-wide. There's some kind of communication jamming in places."
He took in the weapons of the Zetyans, his gaze lingering for a second on the gently revving Weedmaster 5000 covered in gore and ichor.
"I can see you fellows have already had words with the locals. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it might be time to consider closing shop for an impromptu long weekend."
Beside him, the little figure's rage slowly subsided. It clattered down off the table and began poking around the assembly lines, rifling through parts and tools, clearly fascinated by the claptrap constructions the Zetyans had made but hesitant to approach them directly.
"...course. On shipping day, of all..." The suited one half-muttered to himself after a moment's parsing, gazing over the two as the runts began to slowly inch near the Marchander, who ogled what looked like a strapping sealer and tarp roll mixed with aerosol cans and a lighter. After a stint of unconsciousness, he remembered his manners, bringing attention back to the Yokari afore him. "Za'sos Mgh'en. Manager of this branch. Uh...."
The manager seemed to shift his attention now, cursing while stroking his chin and only pausing in his meditation to flinch at the sharp crack and brittle snapping of a firebomb missing it's intended target. Aftersuch, feverish delibration having given him something to prevent an immediate embolism of his shop, he turned on his heel as if in epiphany, shouting in his native tongue at the workers and at the gaggle of runts - who, in innocence, were creeping closer and closer to the not-runt that ogled their varied and various constructions.
"<<Right! You lot, gather everything up! Every single weapon, gun, anything of value! Fish through storage, break some glass if you need a weapon, I don't care! MOVE!>>"
In response, the once docile crowd suddenly went into another flurry, as the small wake of meat vacuumed up every tool that wasn't bolted down, and all the workers started to collect amongst themselves that which was of more quality, dispersing amongst the parts of the building not sealed. Matsudaira could almost see the Weedmaster wielder twitch in anticipation as he... she? It? eyed a barred up door presumably leading outside.
Turning back to the Yokari, he spoke again in Common, a slight accent not immediate before now tinging his words. "Shit, if this is city-wide, the hell is someone like you doing over here and not, like, fuckin' having pow-wows over this at Central? And how'd you, they even...?" He eyed the window they came in from for a moment, head angling towards it subtly before turning back. "...nah, I don't wanna know."
Takeaki nodded, not unsympathetically.
"Probably best. Excuse me a moment," he said, activating his holo and holding a muted conversation in Ingenious. Wangmo watched in fascination as the tide of meat flowed and ebbed, hoovering up parts and items as it surged from room to room. A runt stopped to stare longingly at the electrified wrench Wangmo had been playing with, and she handed it over grudgingly, before putting one pair of arms on her hips and folding the other.
Takeaki finished his call and uttered a mild, disaffected curse to himself before straightening his back and glancing around the room.
"I'm afraid 'Central' are a little preoccupied. Seems like we might be on our own. Any chance you have a orbit-capable ship docked in the city somewhere? It might be prudent to leave and, if you don't mind, we might tag along."
----
A Selenican captain was the first to realise what was going on in space. The steady stream of additional Canton and Axis warships had not gone unnoticed, but the navigator had grunted in surprise as a large gap began to appear in the string of Cantonese pickets and staging positions that ringed the inner system.
The captain was more experienced and guessed immediately that they were making way for something huge. His ship was hauling a cargo of radiator elements and some chemical containers, and they were waiting for a last piece of documentation from the portmaster before leaving. He decided to risk getting tangled in red tape.
The Selenican freighter goosed into position and then disappeared into FTL, leaving the system just moments before a colossal FTL signature lit up the consoles on every ship in-system. Right where the captain had said it would be, a gigantic battlestation slipped into realspace through a shimmering emerald gate. The Otakemaru Station, a Crucible pattern weapon built by the Laptev Axis. Its prow angled menacingly towards the inner system as it dwarfed the surrounding vessels....
---
Za'sos muttered to himself as he tried to remember, partly from stress as his six eyes darted to and fro the rivers of runt that ebbed throughout the shop. "Shit, one, two dedicated shipping vessels, some shitbox lane clipper... uhh..."
He pulled out a datapad, pressing a button to extend it outwards as he tapped with haste through various applications. In the background, the runts and workers began to ferry the equipment into a separate room, and the faint telltale sounds of van engines revving could be heard. He paid little mind - either it was expected, or he simply didn't care.
"...shitting faggot cocksucker, of course it needs fueling. Of course. fffuck." He looked to the vacancy that was gradually forming, and motioned for the two foreign objects to follow. "Tell me the fuckin' mini-me goblins haven't torn the ports to shit yet, cause we're needing about 15 minutes to fuel up. 20-25 if we have to use the bigger ride." He motioned again for the nameless weedwhacker to follow, after noticing they seemed particularly focused on a banging at the door. "We aren't using the clipper."
Takeaki shook his head. "The spaceport should be safe," he said, half truthfully. In reality he wasn't quite sure, but his gut told him he would have heard if the spaceport had fallen.
"The second largest contingent of Cantonese troops is at the international spaceport in the north of the city. It'll take more than some crazed Cultists to overrun them, but we should hurry before they evacuate and leave us stranded."
The truth was there were less than five hundred Cantonese marines on the entire planet, and less than half of those were stationed in the capital city. The others were scattered as advisory officers for the FRG or, secretly, as special operations teams. The bulk of them were at the Cantonese embassy, where they were probably already destroying sensitive systems and chivvying stressed diplomats into vehicles for extraction.
Despite all that though, the marines at the spaceport were heavily armed. It was their best shot, or so he hoped. The streets surrounding the Zetyan Embassy had become very hostile very quickly. His trusted contact, a smuggler boss, had turned on him without warning, and he and his sidekick had barely escaped with their lives. They would need the help of this swarm of mad-eyed aliens to escape the chaos and make it to the spaceport because he doubted the marines would leave their posts to come get him. How the fleet would react when he brought a few dozen Zetyans through the cordon he didn't know, but in this evening of horror and bloodshed everyone, whether CONA or SAGA, was an enemy of the Cult...
"...they better hold." He said after a moment while nodding, though in a softer tone from his previous rancor. However, the moment passed, and soon he began barking orders as they entered the loading bay.
It was a modest warehouse and garage, littered with equipment and utilities, and with 5 sizeable vans filling themselves with runts, material and the occasional man. Kaida'kol wasn't exactly a shipping company, and both of the locals would have had a fit if the gun store started operating freight trucks en masse. Something about feng shui? Or was that a RANGSI tradition? Whoever it actually belonged to, Kaida'kol didn't care; the official PR statement was that they would not operate any official shipping capacity planet side as to 'not disturb the local environment to such a degree that it disrupts the traditions and practices of the local populace regarding balance in their homes and lives'.
Ostensibly, the room they were in was a 'prep bay' where 'technician vans' and 'repair teams' would drive across the city and abroad as to 'solve consumer problems'. It was a bold faced lie, and everybody knew it. Technician vans didn't need to be half the length of a school bus, just as wide, and unless you counted a very specific model of kitchen sink Kaida'kol had zero reason even to field them, anyways. The branch was their barely-legal arms trafficking operation writ small, delivering the wonders of gunpowder, runts and cheap polymer gun parts either to willing customers - of which, few would admit to - or to other shipping companies, to be dispersed to who knows where.
Matsudaira and Wangmo could notice two particular things as the tide ebbed and flowed to the beck and call of the manager, and their older brethren made sure they weren't chewing on cables or transmissions.
One: what they were shoving into those vans wasn't merchandise.
Sure, one could say that about runts, but one could also say that about fully-built and loaded guns that certainly wouldn't fly under local legislature if they were even half as complete.
Two: there were far more runts going in than there were out.
Wangmo could swear she almost saw one crawl into a cubby half their size. Matsudaira could see the glints of soulless eyes poking through a van's ceiling.
If one could admire the Zetyans for anything, it was their unnatural capacity to find new, inventive ways to break any law. Apparently, even those of physics.
"Right. Grigger, mini-me." Za'sos spoke after giving one more order, starting to let his insensitivity bleed through via attention-grabbing statements. "Pick a van, any van. All got fuel in them. The little shits can get 'convinced' to leave once you choose."
Matsudaira cast a knowing eye over the trucks, but said nothing. Even if the Canton had been inclined to intercede on behalf of the Federal Republic and do something about this clandestine operation, it was not his job. Not my pig, not my farm, as the Sattrans were wont to say. Regardless, now was hardly the time to embark on a discussion of the merits of firearms registration.
He simply nodded, and picked the van that seemed least crammed with wild-eyed offworlders. It wasn't much of a choice. Finding a seat on a crate of what he hoped were not explosives, he braced himself behind a window pillar and drew his sidearm. Wangmo scuttled off along the deck, tugging at things occasionally and muttering to herself, occasionally swearing in surprise as she discovered another runt folded into an improbable corner or hidden nook.
Outside, a crowd of Marchanders had discovered the wire mesh gates to the factory yard and were tugging at it, oblivious to the activity inside. One levelled a rifle and attempted to shoot off the heavy padlock, achieving nothing but a ricochet that caused another cultist to scream in pain.
Their choice made, the doors of the middlemost van soon swung shut after a few of their tinier passengers were 'convinced' to move out. Liberal application of 'runt spray' by two fellow non-runt passengers aside-that a peeled off bit betrayed as ghost pepper extract-the two soon found themselves only slightly less crowded than before, amidst box and shelf and meat. The others soon finished their loading process as well, the thumping and clicking of back doors closing like vaults echoing even through the muffled hull of their chosen ark.
Za'sos, apparently confident in his skills at crowd control, could be seen taking at the wheel from a runt toying with it through a grated glass at the fore of the cabin. After he settled in, the van was started with a mighty roar that subtly rattled the floor, and a keyfob on the sunshield was clicked like a lighter.
The thrumming of engines coincided with the telltale sound of garage doors opening moments later, the vans churning and groaning with weight and anticipation. The crowd outside would be greeted to an intimidating sight, the faceless maws of their yard opening to reveal 5 red-eyed chariots of brown angled steel, and the roar of engines built for the longest hauls.
At once, they began to charge, Matsu's van taking the lead. Holes in the sides of the van opened up with shafts of light, small pinpricks that some of the armed and unhidden promptly jammed the barrels of their guns in, fitting or otherwise. There were still some open for business, though, and if the rapidly-approaching sounds of the jeering cult and the muffled sounds of gunfire meant much, it was that they would be seeing plenty of use in their travels.
The crowd outside the factory was not a directed one. Across the city, trained cadres of Cultists were moving amongst the furious mobs of rioters, using them as cover to strike at key positions such as government buildings, infrastructure, and foreign holdings, but this was not one of those groups.
They were a rabble, eager to loot what they could and kill if they could, ready to vent the frustrations of a year of occupation and recover a little national pride by flocking to the banner of the Cult, the only people who seemed to truly be resisting the aliens. Armed with everything from personal firearms to bricks and sticks, they were not prepared for the mechanized lunacy of the Zetyans. Realising their danger too late they began to stream away from the mesh gates, but for many it was too late as the first battle bus smashed through them, ploughing screaming Marchanders underneath its bulk. As the convoy pulped the unlucky, but mercifully mostly already dead, Marchanders to the floor, the locals opened fire. Sparks flew from the armoured flanks as small arms fire ricocheted from it, whilst one attacker was so enraged she even hurled herself at the side, finding a tenuous hold and beating at a grilled window with a ball-peen hammer until one of her own comrades clipped her with a shotgun pellet, sending her tumbling to the roadway where she was crushed by the bus behind.
Bullets ricoched off the vans like rain as they plowed into the inner city streets, blood caking the front and sides of their convoy almost like paint. The engines revved like dragons, the vans themselves already built for large loads beforehand now pushing themselves to the upper limits as bullet spray showered them with dents and pockmarks. They weren't truly armored vans, by any means - the only thing preventing their interior from becoming a slice of thin swiss was the low caliber and poor marksmanship of their foes. Were they true Cultists, and thus far better equipped, perhaps this escapade could have gone differently, with far more lives lost.
Of course, they weren't. So the rats got crushed under the wheel.
Lead by Matsu's van, they careened into the streets on a beeline towards the spaceport, GPS and navigation giving them the quickest route even as the city began to burn. If anything had blocked the road, Za'sos hadn't planned for it. Their van was going almost 60kph, and if the manager turning back to yell at them was any indication he was reasonably confident about not running into an obstruction in the next 5 seconds.
"HEY!" he shouted, looking at the Ingen with one hand on the wheel. "CALL YOUR FUCKIN' FRIENDS AND LET THEM KNOW WE'RE COMING! I AIN'T DYING TO NO DAMN KAMIKAZES TODAY!"
Matsudaira hesitated for a moment. Technically, he had not conceded to the Zetyans that he was anything other than a minor diplomatic attache, but a glance out of the window told him that the time for secrecy was over and that it no longer matter.
He opened up his holo, keyed in a code, and then waited for it to connect. When the audio line opened, he quite clearly heard the sound of gunfire and the barked orders of a unit in combat, the occasional shriek or howl making its way through the microphone too.
"This is Florin, I am inbound to Site 2 with a contingent of Zetyan nationals aboard five vehicles. Confirm clearance."
There was a pause as the woman on the other end of the line yelled at someone to reposition, then she replied to Matsu.
"Florin, why the Zetyans?"
"I needed a ride. They need to get to their ships."
"Have them pull right up to their ships. I don't want them near our positions."
"Understood."
He turned to Za'sos, one hand on the back of the Zetyan's chair as he spoke into the alien's ear to be heard over the chaos.
"We're good. Don't stop once you're past the cordon, go straight to your ships." he said, clapping the man on the shoulder. Just as he did, there was a commotion in front of them. Something huge burst through a wall ahead of them, a cloud of dust and rubble half-concealing something hulking and sinouous, a faint hint of tentacles emerging from the confusion.
Simultaneously, more assailants emerged from windows and perches on either side of the street, pouring fire down at the convoy. On a water tank above them, a trio of hooded figures stood arms akimbo, screaming insanities into the smoke-wreathed sky....
"Will do. Y-oh shit fuck fuck fuck FU-" The zetyan cut himself off with a tirade of libel as the ambush occurred, bullets cracking their windshield like hail as the route suddenly changed before him. The van lurched violently as he turned left, eyes dashing to any possible escape routes in a panic while he reached for a sidearm. The other vans followed suit, creating a mishmash snake that curved like an arch as the cultists fired upon them.
The tires practically screamed as the van began to drift into the nearest street, alleyway, whatever would fit their van before the guns began to punch holes into their sensitive contents. Bullets fired from portholes across their sides, and a runt peeked out from the top to throw a small glass bottle before being promptly domed. Matsudaira could hear the radio crackle; they were already reporting injuries.
Of course, there were bigger problems. Like the van impacting directly into a wall, having gone far too fast for any main road to account for.
The clang and groan of the van as it ricochet'd off of steel and mortar was only accentuated by the passengers in the walls promptly screaming their lungs out. It was a surreal sound, like flies buzzing with the voices of goblins and men, and judging by the octaves neither the Ingen nor his confidant would want to peek behind the metal and polymer. The GPS's calm voice intoned an alternate route, Za'sos percussing it with a profane litany that no doubt would have gotten him arrested for public indecency and the van churning as it's engine was overdriven once again.
"TAKE POINT! TAKE GODDAMN POINT!" was all he could muster in the chaos, miniscule cuts lining his face and fingers. He hadn't seemed to notice that one of the door windshields had broken.
Matsudaira pulled himself upright, having been thrown to the deck by the crash, as the convoy trundled through wreckage and smoke. They burst out into a dual carriageway that passed along the edge of a block of relatively low buildings, a relief from the close and tall industrial sectors they had been passing through. Hordes of Cultists were assaulting another building, the outer walls torn and the inner works aflame, corpses strewn across the grounds even as fresh hordes lapped around it like some putrid ocean.
Behind them, a hideous creature tumbled from a side alley, still hot on their heels. It was beyond description, but Matsudaira caught a glimpse of a writing maw that looked disturbingly human, like many jaws nested inside one another, and tentacles lashing from the chaos. The rearmost bus was caught as if it had hit a jersey barrier, flipping into the air where the foul creature crashed into it, bringing it tumbling to the ground in a shower of parts and corpses, fire licking over the monster which screaming in delight or outrage, it was impossible to tell.
The surviving buses passed a large intersection, veering down an off-ramp onto a different highway which would take them to the airport, and almost immediately passed a large gathering of Cultists around some kind of radio tower, set up in the ruined remains of what had been a drab and dreary water feature. Matsu levelled his pistol and fired through the window to seemingly little effect, but Wangmo had a far more proactive approach and sprang from the window, disappearing almost immediately into the chaos with a jubilant scream, making for the tower.
As the other passengers of the convoy watched, the Cultists sprang up like a kicked hornet's next, swirling about the tiny figure in their midst. An explosion sent the small tower toppling over, drawing yet more of their attention, leaving a multitude of exposed targets directly in the six-eyed sights of the much-abused Zetyans aboard the battle bus convoy...
The other van crunched and groaned in the distance as the tower crumbled in the explosion, distant roars and screams drowned out by the cacophony to their direct right. Potshots from runts came from the rear of one of the vans, aimed presumably at the creature but hitting nothing in particular. Hard to aim as a runt, harder when you're stuffed into a moving van like sardines. The convoy swerved slightly as they anticipated debris from the collapse, dust kicking up around the armored boxes as ungainly screeches tore themselves from the throats of both sides.
Zetyans were not one to lose on opportunities. It was how they ended up here, it was why their vans were glorified technicals without guns - and it was why, when the crowd of Cultists were exposed directly to their broadsides, none of them with a lock on target hesitated to take out their stress and anger. Bullets cracked like whips as rifles and pistols alike shot through the portholes, and one particularly incensed member of the crew-if Wangmo had survived her excursion, she'd recognize it as the weedwhacker wielder-popped from the rear of one to throw an improv grenade their way, a glass bottle filled with gunpower and a lit fuse delivered with profanity and more gunshots.
"Oh Koa DAMNIT all they got one of the vans FUCK! Hey! HEY!" Matsudaira could hear his chauffeur begin yelling into a radio, the van swerving somewhat as his attention became distracted for a moment. "Hey, rearmost van, which van was tha- what? #4, okay! I think they just had like fuckin' shotty parts or something, let's just keep going!"
Clicking off his radio, he turned back to the Ingen shooting the cultists apiece. "Lightbulb! GPS says like 3-no, 2 minutes, get ready to hit the ground running."
The Cultists dropped like flies around the collapsing tower, riddled with what was effectively a small-caliber broadside from the enraged Zetyans who raked their position bus by bus. Wangmo was still darting through the chaos, smaller even than the little Marchanders, when the monstrosity that was pursuing the convoy burst through a pedestrian footbridge and into the scene. A lash of one of its tentacles bowled her and a dozen Cultists to the floor and it began tearing them apart blindly, ear-wrenching shrieks sounding as the writhing limbs did their bloody work.
Just as one snagged around Wangmo's ankle and began to drag her to her death, the improvised grenade went off with a crack. Unknowingly, the abomination had stepped on it, pinning it beneath what passed for a foot. Vile liquid spattered everywhere, along with chunks of diseased flesh, and the beast toppled over, flailing to right itself. Taking the opening, Wangmo sprang to her feet and scuttled towards the convoy, leaping at the last second and grabbing on to a runt as the bus nearly passed her by. She chittered away breathlessly in some strange language, battered but exhilarated.
Ahead of the surviving buses, a steady flow of spacecraft leaving the dockyards ahead was visible. Everyone that could was evacuating, from diplomatic shuttles and corporate yachts to chartered freighters and security pickets. Ahead of them, the tell-tale signs of battle littered the highway, burned-out vehicles and corpses strewn across the asphalt, whilst ahead on the left gunfire still raged as the Cult assaulted the outermost reaches of the sprawling dockyards.
As soon as the spacecraft became visible, every driver in the convoy slammed the accelerator. Highway to two-lane to three as the spaceport creeped into view, gunshots cracking the air all the while from both the convoy and the cultists ahead. To the guards at the spaceport, at a glance it seemed almost as if a military convoy had arrived, the illusion breaking only with the telltale red eyes of Zettish vehicles and the vans moving into a formation of twos.
The tinny roar of their engines soon was percussed with the sounds of screams. Like battering rams, the vans began to plow through the rear of the Marchander horde, blood and bodies being flung around as the 4 7-ton vans going at highway speeds began opening up on every cultist within sight. It was like a sight out of an apocalypse movie, or a zombie flick, save the 'zombies' were howling rat people with more small arms than a drug cartel, and the vans were lacking in overt makeshiftness.
One could hear Za'sos shouting, but just barely. With the broken windshield, the chaos outside, the chaos inside, his shrill voice blended into the background noise turning muddled amidst their unearthly surroundings. But then, the hordes thinned, until the familiar rear entrance to the spaceport passed by his view, and he could see his brothers-in-arms waving the convoy through to the sound of Burnhams and Tactical Intervention Rifles.
Free of the strenuous confines of urban warfare, their van began to peel off. Za'sos's driving skills, though questionable for any civil life, had evidently proven well enough in the meandering chaos, but within an active spaceport he now feverishly looked for any place to drop a certain two passengers off. Matsu could swear they passed by two port gates already.
The Zetyan freighters loomed suddenly, obscured by the bulk of a Capitolite hauler which suddenly took off, its holds crammed with passengers instead of goods. Ahead, a couple of Cantonese officers were remonstrating with a crowd of angry Zetyans as the vans rolled to a halt. Alarmed by the sudden infusion of dozens more Zetyans, one of the officers began speaking urgently into his radio, whilst all the Cantonese placed worried hands on their holsters, but then Matsudaira emerged from the midst of the churning runtmass.
"It's alright captain, it's alright. These are the passengers they were waiting for; they'll be dusting off right away, just let them load their goods and people."
The captain stopped, surprised. "And just who are you?" he demanded.
Matsudaira stepped closer and spread his finger and thumb, the gold holorings flashing a symbol that was only momentarily visible. Five rings in a cross pattern, with a saltire cross bisecting them. The captain stepped back involuntarily and went to salute, but Matsu hissed at him and he stopped.
"Of...of course. You there. Proceed with embarkation." he said, before turning to his troops and waving them off.
Matsu turned to Za'sos and offered him a nod. "You should be clear. I wouldn't dawdle if I were you - the sooner you put this place to your afterburners, the better."
He stuck out a hand. "Thank you for the ride."
"...y-yeah." A moment's pause came to the Zetyan, the yokari's gesture returned shortly after. "Hey, tell your friend she did good work. The midget or whatever." If he saw Wangmo, he'd tilt his head in her direction for a moment, before nodding to Matsu and turning back to the wheel. A familiar radio was drawn to his mouth in lockstep. "Alright, c'mon! LET'S MOVE! GO!"
The quartet revved their engines and charged back towards the freighter, a large, ungainly thing that had just finished lowering the bay doors. Amidst the crowds of runt and zet, each individual clamoring to secure their spot on their ride home, having four vans was for the Kaida'kol employees a rather large boost. Heedless of the jeering and complaining behind them, they secured figurative first class seats by dint of force and automotive coercion.
Red eyes soon lit alight, arcing out like tree branches as the thing's engines roared like dragons. As soon as the crowd had been crammed into it's depths - not hard, by Zettish cramming standards - and the bay doors had been sealed airtight, the hulk lifted up, up and away into the blue sky. Matsu could faintly see it begin competitively bullying a Takeema Industries sloop out of a less cramped airspace, warning lights used as the equivalent of a truck horn as atmospheric perspective slowly shifted it out of view.
Beef - Canton
In the dark gloom of the far side of the Sarnath System, something was moving.
Marchand, the more populous and wealthy of the two planets in the system, had long been under Imperial control. Officially it was independent, but ever since the great battles over Marchand the system had lain under the hulls of alien warships, flying the Jade, Cantonese, Imaginese and Minevan flags and a dozen others aside. Suborned by force of arms to SAGA's cause, Marchand's trade had continued uninterrupted despite the ongoing violence below.
Zdeno, the mysterious and storm-lashed twin to Marchand, had lain silent, the Zdenese warships battered and bruised. For more than two years it had been ignored, fenced off and left to its own strange devices, but now in the darkness something was moving...
The watchful eyes of the Axis were not blind. Quietly, but clearly, their ranks began to swell in anticipation. The war for the Sarnath System was far from over.
For the Zetyans on Marchand, the conflict had been a largely academic matter, as far as Zetyans were inclined to describe anything as 'academic'. Although technically aligned with CONA and thus anti-SAGA and so aligned against the yokari and their puppet government, the Zetyans still did a healthy trade on the planet, much of it facilitated by the 'lightbulb goblins'.
They had watched, and sometimes heckled, as the brutal and low-intensity conflict had ebbed and flowed, but this morning things had become somewhat more serious. Locals had tried to break into the facility, hurling firebombs and shooting through windows and even briefly forcing open one of the rear work access doors. Happily, quick thinking and judicious use of a Weedmaster 5000 by one of the staff members put paid to that incursion, and now the Zetyans had hastily barricaded where they could. The building was a flurry of activity, some productive and some not, as the curious many-eyed offworlders went about their business.
The sound of gunfire on the street outside barely elicited a reaction from the more senior Zetyans - it had become so common over the last couple of hours. The inane chittering of the runts, however, was vindicated when an upper window cracked and fell apart, chunks of plastiglass thudding sonorously to the ground. Through the hole came two figures, half falling and half flying. The first landed heavily, cursing loudly and rolling through the debris to stand upright, a handgun clutched at the ready. The second, much smaller, landed lightly atop a table and began screeching at the top of its lungs.
The first figure was easily recognisable as a yokari. Green, middle-aged, with a trim goatee and the familiar glowing orbs, he was bleeding from a few light scratches and was panting heavily. He was dressed in a pea jacket and civilian clothes, in contrast to his companion.
Approximately two feet tall, the little being was clad head to toe in flak armour, a helmet topped with oversized metal ears hiding its face. It had six limbs and was stood on two of them, the other four waving as it screamed incoherent obscenities at the Zetyans.
"Quiet, Wangmo," called the yokari, taking in the assembled Zetyans around him with an almost-disguised sense of unease.
"My apologies for disturbing you," he said to the crowd at large "but the weather outside has turned."
----
The Zetyan installation was as much of an anomaly as it was an impressive sight.
Not because of size - it was just a modest office coupled with a warehouse and a repairs workshop practically duct-taped on top, a glorified in/out button of various goods for the Zettish megaconglomerate Kaida'kol Arms Manufacturing. If anything, only the Zetyans called it an 'installation', to most it was simply 'the gun office' or 'the place pest control should burn to the ground'. Neither was it output - until today, they had an invisible cap on their output, both from the Yokari eye in the sky and the xenophobic Marchander businesses to their left and right. To get too big would be suicide, yet too small to be their doom. Staying within the guidelines, however, let them be tolerably existant within the Caracarian jewel.
Most would never expect a business from a CONA nation to open shop on a SAGA nation at all, let alone one from the known fanatics from Laptev. But there was a reason - Kaida'kol had sold to Imaginarium at TRIDEX, and through chance connections managed to gain purchase in TIERZ. Expanding to their neighbor, to any other business, would be a lost cause, but Kaida'kol only saw green and gold. Opening a branch on Marchand was supposed to be the testing ground, future expansion throughout the Canton banking on if it had worked. An 'academic' plan, said one executive at their first internal meeting.
Then the locals started throwing firebombs at the windows.
To say many things had happened in the last few hours that shouldn't have would be the most succinct way of putting it. Their guns were supposed to be pointed at the goblins, not their makers, but several 10mils through the roof proved that point wrong. Weedmasters were supposed to be used on runts and rockrats, but the blood and unmentionables practically caking the outside of the rear work door proved it worked fine otherwise.
The windows were supposed to be bulletproof, and then two bodies were flung into the first floor install shop.
The room was abuzz when they had entered so violently, some going about their jobs and some going about making improvised weapons or barricades. Once the chaos subdued, the cacophony of the runt workers nearly exploded upon seeing what looked like themselves in full plate and with a gun, only shushed by a few brandishing weapons and a particularly off-kilter looking one revving a bloody Weedmaster once or twice.
A moment of silence passed, the two parties regarding each other through suspicion and narrowed eyes. Most were in civilian clothes, a few with improvised helmets, chest pieces, or equipment 'repatriated' from their own shop. While they had guns, they were mostly handguns-even barring tight restrictions on firearms shipments, any that were even present may as well have been rotting in storage. The only ones that looked passable for anything bigger were improvised machines scrapped from junk and gun parts almost seeming as if grease formed their constituent atoms. However, after the standoff, one of them spoke - a Zetyan in a spiffy business suit tinted shit brown, whose hand hovered dangerously ready near a holstered pistol.
"...yeah?" He asked sarcastically, eyes flitting from them to the window behind glassy sunscreen domes. The adults began to slightly loosen, though the runts continued to quietly 'ooh' and 'aah' and only being silenced by the suited Zetyan motioning for them to barricade the once-called 'window'. "You mind filling us in? Cause the locals aren't helping."
The newcomer hid his discomfort well. Nobody could stand in the midst of a horde of armed and agitated Zetyans without feeling a flutter of panic in their gut, but years of self-discipline went into his next answer.
"Of course. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Matsudaira Takeaki, Strategic Content Coordinator at the Cantonese Embassy."
He said this with a completely straight face, despite the gun in his hand and the blood on his coat. "It's l-" he began, pausing as a particularly loud explosion rattled the remaining windowpanes.
"It's looking bad out there. The Cult have launched a major attack. It looks like it's city-wide. There's some kind of communication jamming in places."
He took in the weapons of the Zetyans, his gaze lingering for a second on the gently revving Weedmaster 5000 covered in gore and ichor.
"I can see you fellows have already had words with the locals. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it might be time to consider closing shop for an impromptu long weekend."
Beside him, the little figure's rage slowly subsided. It clattered down off the table and began poking around the assembly lines, rifling through parts and tools, clearly fascinated by the claptrap constructions the Zetyans had made but hesitant to approach them directly.
"...course. On shipping day, of all..." The suited one half-muttered to himself after a moment's parsing, gazing over the two as the runts began to slowly inch near the Marchander, who ogled what looked like a strapping sealer and tarp roll mixed with aerosol cans and a lighter. After a stint of unconsciousness, he remembered his manners, bringing attention back to the Yokari afore him. "Za'sos Mgh'en. Manager of this branch. Uh...."
The manager seemed to shift his attention now, cursing while stroking his chin and only pausing in his meditation to flinch at the sharp crack and brittle snapping of a firebomb missing it's intended target. Aftersuch, feverish delibration having given him something to prevent an immediate embolism of his shop, he turned on his heel as if in epiphany, shouting in his native tongue at the workers and at the gaggle of runts - who, in innocence, were creeping closer and closer to the not-runt that ogled their varied and various constructions.
"<<Right! You lot, gather everything up! Every single weapon, gun, anything of value! Fish through storage, break some glass if you need a weapon, I don't care! MOVE!>>"
In response, the once docile crowd suddenly went into another flurry, as the small wake of meat vacuumed up every tool that wasn't bolted down, and all the workers started to collect amongst themselves that which was of more quality, dispersing amongst the parts of the building not sealed. Matsudaira could almost see the Weedmaster wielder twitch in anticipation as he... she? It? eyed a barred up door presumably leading outside.
Turning back to the Yokari, he spoke again in Common, a slight accent not immediate before now tinging his words. "Shit, if this is city-wide, the hell is someone like you doing over here and not, like, fuckin' having pow-wows over this at Central? And how'd you, they even...?" He eyed the window they came in from for a moment, head angling towards it subtly before turning back. "...nah, I don't wanna know."
Takeaki nodded, not unsympathetically.
"Probably best. Excuse me a moment," he said, activating his holo and holding a muted conversation in Ingenious. Wangmo watched in fascination as the tide of meat flowed and ebbed, hoovering up parts and items as it surged from room to room. A runt stopped to stare longingly at the electrified wrench Wangmo had been playing with, and she handed it over grudgingly, before putting one pair of arms on her hips and folding the other.
Takeaki finished his call and uttered a mild, disaffected curse to himself before straightening his back and glancing around the room.
"I'm afraid 'Central' are a little preoccupied. Seems like we might be on our own. Any chance you have a orbit-capable ship docked in the city somewhere? It might be prudent to leave and, if you don't mind, we might tag along."
----
A Selenican captain was the first to realise what was going on in space. The steady stream of additional Canton and Axis warships had not gone unnoticed, but the navigator had grunted in surprise as a large gap began to appear in the string of Cantonese pickets and staging positions that ringed the inner system.
The captain was more experienced and guessed immediately that they were making way for something huge. His ship was hauling a cargo of radiator elements and some chemical containers, and they were waiting for a last piece of documentation from the portmaster before leaving. He decided to risk getting tangled in red tape.
The Selenican freighter goosed into position and then disappeared into FTL, leaving the system just moments before a colossal FTL signature lit up the consoles on every ship in-system. Right where the captain had said it would be, a gigantic battlestation slipped into realspace through a shimmering emerald gate. The Otakemaru Station, a Crucible pattern weapon built by the Laptev Axis. Its prow angled menacingly towards the inner system as it dwarfed the surrounding vessels....
---
Za'sos muttered to himself as he tried to remember, partly from stress as his six eyes darted to and fro the rivers of runt that ebbed throughout the shop. "Shit, one, two dedicated shipping vessels, some shitbox lane clipper... uhh..."
He pulled out a datapad, pressing a button to extend it outwards as he tapped with haste through various applications. In the background, the runts and workers began to ferry the equipment into a separate room, and the faint telltale sounds of van engines revving could be heard. He paid little mind - either it was expected, or he simply didn't care.
"...shitting faggot cocksucker, of course it needs fueling. Of course. fffuck." He looked to the vacancy that was gradually forming, and motioned for the two foreign objects to follow. "Tell me the fuckin' mini-me goblins haven't torn the ports to shit yet, cause we're needing about 15 minutes to fuel up. 20-25 if we have to use the bigger ride." He motioned again for the nameless weedwhacker to follow, after noticing they seemed particularly focused on a banging at the door. "We aren't using the clipper."
Takeaki shook his head. "The spaceport should be safe," he said, half truthfully. In reality he wasn't quite sure, but his gut told him he would have heard if the spaceport had fallen.
"The second largest contingent of Cantonese troops is at the international spaceport in the north of the city. It'll take more than some crazed Cultists to overrun them, but we should hurry before they evacuate and leave us stranded."
The truth was there were less than five hundred Cantonese marines on the entire planet, and less than half of those were stationed in the capital city. The others were scattered as advisory officers for the FRG or, secretly, as special operations teams. The bulk of them were at the Cantonese embassy, where they were probably already destroying sensitive systems and chivvying stressed diplomats into vehicles for extraction.
Despite all that though, the marines at the spaceport were heavily armed. It was their best shot, or so he hoped. The streets surrounding the Zetyan Embassy had become very hostile very quickly. His trusted contact, a smuggler boss, had turned on him without warning, and he and his sidekick had barely escaped with their lives. They would need the help of this swarm of mad-eyed aliens to escape the chaos and make it to the spaceport because he doubted the marines would leave their posts to come get him. How the fleet would react when he brought a few dozen Zetyans through the cordon he didn't know, but in this evening of horror and bloodshed everyone, whether CONA or SAGA, was an enemy of the Cult...
"...they better hold." He said after a moment while nodding, though in a softer tone from his previous rancor. However, the moment passed, and soon he began barking orders as they entered the loading bay.
It was a modest warehouse and garage, littered with equipment and utilities, and with 5 sizeable vans filling themselves with runts, material and the occasional man. Kaida'kol wasn't exactly a shipping company, and both of the locals would have had a fit if the gun store started operating freight trucks en masse. Something about feng shui? Or was that a RANGSI tradition? Whoever it actually belonged to, Kaida'kol didn't care; the official PR statement was that they would not operate any official shipping capacity planet side as to 'not disturb the local environment to such a degree that it disrupts the traditions and practices of the local populace regarding balance in their homes and lives'.
Ostensibly, the room they were in was a 'prep bay' where 'technician vans' and 'repair teams' would drive across the city and abroad as to 'solve consumer problems'. It was a bold faced lie, and everybody knew it. Technician vans didn't need to be half the length of a school bus, just as wide, and unless you counted a very specific model of kitchen sink Kaida'kol had zero reason even to field them, anyways. The branch was their barely-legal arms trafficking operation writ small, delivering the wonders of gunpowder, runts and cheap polymer gun parts either to willing customers - of which, few would admit to - or to other shipping companies, to be dispersed to who knows where.
Matsudaira and Wangmo could notice two particular things as the tide ebbed and flowed to the beck and call of the manager, and their older brethren made sure they weren't chewing on cables or transmissions.
One: what they were shoving into those vans wasn't merchandise.
Sure, one could say that about runts, but one could also say that about fully-built and loaded guns that certainly wouldn't fly under local legislature if they were even half as complete.
Two: there were far more runts going in than there were out.
Wangmo could swear she almost saw one crawl into a cubby half their size. Matsudaira could see the glints of soulless eyes poking through a van's ceiling.
If one could admire the Zetyans for anything, it was their unnatural capacity to find new, inventive ways to break any law. Apparently, even those of physics.
"Right. Grigger, mini-me." Za'sos spoke after giving one more order, starting to let his insensitivity bleed through via attention-grabbing statements. "Pick a van, any van. All got fuel in them. The little shits can get 'convinced' to leave once you choose."
Matsudaira cast a knowing eye over the trucks, but said nothing. Even if the Canton had been inclined to intercede on behalf of the Federal Republic and do something about this clandestine operation, it was not his job. Not my pig, not my farm, as the Sattrans were wont to say. Regardless, now was hardly the time to embark on a discussion of the merits of firearms registration.
He simply nodded, and picked the van that seemed least crammed with wild-eyed offworlders. It wasn't much of a choice. Finding a seat on a crate of what he hoped were not explosives, he braced himself behind a window pillar and drew his sidearm. Wangmo scuttled off along the deck, tugging at things occasionally and muttering to herself, occasionally swearing in surprise as she discovered another runt folded into an improbable corner or hidden nook.
Outside, a crowd of Marchanders had discovered the wire mesh gates to the factory yard and were tugging at it, oblivious to the activity inside. One levelled a rifle and attempted to shoot off the heavy padlock, achieving nothing but a ricochet that caused another cultist to scream in pain.
Their choice made, the doors of the middlemost van soon swung shut after a few of their tinier passengers were 'convinced' to move out. Liberal application of 'runt spray' by two fellow non-runt passengers aside-that a peeled off bit betrayed as ghost pepper extract-the two soon found themselves only slightly less crowded than before, amidst box and shelf and meat. The others soon finished their loading process as well, the thumping and clicking of back doors closing like vaults echoing even through the muffled hull of their chosen ark.
Za'sos, apparently confident in his skills at crowd control, could be seen taking at the wheel from a runt toying with it through a grated glass at the fore of the cabin. After he settled in, the van was started with a mighty roar that subtly rattled the floor, and a keyfob on the sunshield was clicked like a lighter.
The thrumming of engines coincided with the telltale sound of garage doors opening moments later, the vans churning and groaning with weight and anticipation. The crowd outside would be greeted to an intimidating sight, the faceless maws of their yard opening to reveal 5 red-eyed chariots of brown angled steel, and the roar of engines built for the longest hauls.
At once, they began to charge, Matsu's van taking the lead. Holes in the sides of the van opened up with shafts of light, small pinpricks that some of the armed and unhidden promptly jammed the barrels of their guns in, fitting or otherwise. There were still some open for business, though, and if the rapidly-approaching sounds of the jeering cult and the muffled sounds of gunfire meant much, it was that they would be seeing plenty of use in their travels.
The crowd outside the factory was not a directed one. Across the city, trained cadres of Cultists were moving amongst the furious mobs of rioters, using them as cover to strike at key positions such as government buildings, infrastructure, and foreign holdings, but this was not one of those groups.
They were a rabble, eager to loot what they could and kill if they could, ready to vent the frustrations of a year of occupation and recover a little national pride by flocking to the banner of the Cult, the only people who seemed to truly be resisting the aliens. Armed with everything from personal firearms to bricks and sticks, they were not prepared for the mechanized lunacy of the Zetyans. Realising their danger too late they began to stream away from the mesh gates, but for many it was too late as the first battle bus smashed through them, ploughing screaming Marchanders underneath its bulk. As the convoy pulped the unlucky, but mercifully mostly already dead, Marchanders to the floor, the locals opened fire. Sparks flew from the armoured flanks as small arms fire ricocheted from it, whilst one attacker was so enraged she even hurled herself at the side, finding a tenuous hold and beating at a grilled window with a ball-peen hammer until one of her own comrades clipped her with a shotgun pellet, sending her tumbling to the roadway where she was crushed by the bus behind.
Bullets ricoched off the vans like rain as they plowed into the inner city streets, blood caking the front and sides of their convoy almost like paint. The engines revved like dragons, the vans themselves already built for large loads beforehand now pushing themselves to the upper limits as bullet spray showered them with dents and pockmarks. They weren't truly armored vans, by any means - the only thing preventing their interior from becoming a slice of thin swiss was the low caliber and poor marksmanship of their foes. Were they true Cultists, and thus far better equipped, perhaps this escapade could have gone differently, with far more lives lost.
Of course, they weren't. So the rats got crushed under the wheel.
Lead by Matsu's van, they careened into the streets on a beeline towards the spaceport, GPS and navigation giving them the quickest route even as the city began to burn. If anything had blocked the road, Za'sos hadn't planned for it. Their van was going almost 60kph, and if the manager turning back to yell at them was any indication he was reasonably confident about not running into an obstruction in the next 5 seconds.
"HEY!" he shouted, looking at the Ingen with one hand on the wheel. "CALL YOUR FUCKIN' FRIENDS AND LET THEM KNOW WE'RE COMING! I AIN'T DYING TO NO DAMN KAMIKAZES TODAY!"
Matsudaira hesitated for a moment. Technically, he had not conceded to the Zetyans that he was anything other than a minor diplomatic attache, but a glance out of the window told him that the time for secrecy was over and that it no longer matter.
He opened up his holo, keyed in a code, and then waited for it to connect. When the audio line opened, he quite clearly heard the sound of gunfire and the barked orders of a unit in combat, the occasional shriek or howl making its way through the microphone too.
"This is Florin, I am inbound to Site 2 with a contingent of Zetyan nationals aboard five vehicles. Confirm clearance."
There was a pause as the woman on the other end of the line yelled at someone to reposition, then she replied to Matsu.
"Florin, why the Zetyans?"
"I needed a ride. They need to get to their ships."
"Have them pull right up to their ships. I don't want them near our positions."
"Understood."
He turned to Za'sos, one hand on the back of the Zetyan's chair as he spoke into the alien's ear to be heard over the chaos.
"We're good. Don't stop once you're past the cordon, go straight to your ships." he said, clapping the man on the shoulder. Just as he did, there was a commotion in front of them. Something huge burst through a wall ahead of them, a cloud of dust and rubble half-concealing something hulking and sinouous, a faint hint of tentacles emerging from the confusion.
Simultaneously, more assailants emerged from windows and perches on either side of the street, pouring fire down at the convoy. On a water tank above them, a trio of hooded figures stood arms akimbo, screaming insanities into the smoke-wreathed sky....
"Will do. Y-oh shit fuck fuck fuck FU-" The zetyan cut himself off with a tirade of libel as the ambush occurred, bullets cracking their windshield like hail as the route suddenly changed before him. The van lurched violently as he turned left, eyes dashing to any possible escape routes in a panic while he reached for a sidearm. The other vans followed suit, creating a mishmash snake that curved like an arch as the cultists fired upon them.
The tires practically screamed as the van began to drift into the nearest street, alleyway, whatever would fit their van before the guns began to punch holes into their sensitive contents. Bullets fired from portholes across their sides, and a runt peeked out from the top to throw a small glass bottle before being promptly domed. Matsudaira could hear the radio crackle; they were already reporting injuries.
Of course, there were bigger problems. Like the van impacting directly into a wall, having gone far too fast for any main road to account for.
The clang and groan of the van as it ricochet'd off of steel and mortar was only accentuated by the passengers in the walls promptly screaming their lungs out. It was a surreal sound, like flies buzzing with the voices of goblins and men, and judging by the octaves neither the Ingen nor his confidant would want to peek behind the metal and polymer. The GPS's calm voice intoned an alternate route, Za'sos percussing it with a profane litany that no doubt would have gotten him arrested for public indecency and the van churning as it's engine was overdriven once again.
"TAKE POINT! TAKE GODDAMN POINT!" was all he could muster in the chaos, miniscule cuts lining his face and fingers. He hadn't seemed to notice that one of the door windshields had broken.
Matsudaira pulled himself upright, having been thrown to the deck by the crash, as the convoy trundled through wreckage and smoke. They burst out into a dual carriageway that passed along the edge of a block of relatively low buildings, a relief from the close and tall industrial sectors they had been passing through. Hordes of Cultists were assaulting another building, the outer walls torn and the inner works aflame, corpses strewn across the grounds even as fresh hordes lapped around it like some putrid ocean.
Behind them, a hideous creature tumbled from a side alley, still hot on their heels. It was beyond description, but Matsudaira caught a glimpse of a writing maw that looked disturbingly human, like many jaws nested inside one another, and tentacles lashing from the chaos. The rearmost bus was caught as if it had hit a jersey barrier, flipping into the air where the foul creature crashed into it, bringing it tumbling to the ground in a shower of parts and corpses, fire licking over the monster which screaming in delight or outrage, it was impossible to tell.
The surviving buses passed a large intersection, veering down an off-ramp onto a different highway which would take them to the airport, and almost immediately passed a large gathering of Cultists around some kind of radio tower, set up in the ruined remains of what had been a drab and dreary water feature. Matsu levelled his pistol and fired through the window to seemingly little effect, but Wangmo had a far more proactive approach and sprang from the window, disappearing almost immediately into the chaos with a jubilant scream, making for the tower.
As the other passengers of the convoy watched, the Cultists sprang up like a kicked hornet's next, swirling about the tiny figure in their midst. An explosion sent the small tower toppling over, drawing yet more of their attention, leaving a multitude of exposed targets directly in the six-eyed sights of the much-abused Zetyans aboard the battle bus convoy...
The other van crunched and groaned in the distance as the tower crumbled in the explosion, distant roars and screams drowned out by the cacophony to their direct right. Potshots from runts came from the rear of one of the vans, aimed presumably at the creature but hitting nothing in particular. Hard to aim as a runt, harder when you're stuffed into a moving van like sardines. The convoy swerved slightly as they anticipated debris from the collapse, dust kicking up around the armored boxes as ungainly screeches tore themselves from the throats of both sides.
Zetyans were not one to lose on opportunities. It was how they ended up here, it was why their vans were glorified technicals without guns - and it was why, when the crowd of Cultists were exposed directly to their broadsides, none of them with a lock on target hesitated to take out their stress and anger. Bullets cracked like whips as rifles and pistols alike shot through the portholes, and one particularly incensed member of the crew-if Wangmo had survived her excursion, she'd recognize it as the weedwhacker wielder-popped from the rear of one to throw an improv grenade their way, a glass bottle filled with gunpower and a lit fuse delivered with profanity and more gunshots.
"Oh Koa DAMNIT all they got one of the vans FUCK! Hey! HEY!" Matsudaira could hear his chauffeur begin yelling into a radio, the van swerving somewhat as his attention became distracted for a moment. "Hey, rearmost van, which van was tha- what? #4, okay! I think they just had like fuckin' shotty parts or something, let's just keep going!"
Clicking off his radio, he turned back to the Ingen shooting the cultists apiece. "Lightbulb! GPS says like 3-no, 2 minutes, get ready to hit the ground running."
The Cultists dropped like flies around the collapsing tower, riddled with what was effectively a small-caliber broadside from the enraged Zetyans who raked their position bus by bus. Wangmo was still darting through the chaos, smaller even than the little Marchanders, when the monstrosity that was pursuing the convoy burst through a pedestrian footbridge and into the scene. A lash of one of its tentacles bowled her and a dozen Cultists to the floor and it began tearing them apart blindly, ear-wrenching shrieks sounding as the writhing limbs did their bloody work.
Just as one snagged around Wangmo's ankle and began to drag her to her death, the improvised grenade went off with a crack. Unknowingly, the abomination had stepped on it, pinning it beneath what passed for a foot. Vile liquid spattered everywhere, along with chunks of diseased flesh, and the beast toppled over, flailing to right itself. Taking the opening, Wangmo sprang to her feet and scuttled towards the convoy, leaping at the last second and grabbing on to a runt as the bus nearly passed her by. She chittered away breathlessly in some strange language, battered but exhilarated.
Ahead of the surviving buses, a steady flow of spacecraft leaving the dockyards ahead was visible. Everyone that could was evacuating, from diplomatic shuttles and corporate yachts to chartered freighters and security pickets. Ahead of them, the tell-tale signs of battle littered the highway, burned-out vehicles and corpses strewn across the asphalt, whilst ahead on the left gunfire still raged as the Cult assaulted the outermost reaches of the sprawling dockyards.
As soon as the spacecraft became visible, every driver in the convoy slammed the accelerator. Highway to two-lane to three as the spaceport creeped into view, gunshots cracking the air all the while from both the convoy and the cultists ahead. To the guards at the spaceport, at a glance it seemed almost as if a military convoy had arrived, the illusion breaking only with the telltale red eyes of Zettish vehicles and the vans moving into a formation of twos.
The tinny roar of their engines soon was percussed with the sounds of screams. Like battering rams, the vans began to plow through the rear of the Marchander horde, blood and bodies being flung around as the 4 7-ton vans going at highway speeds began opening up on every cultist within sight. It was like a sight out of an apocalypse movie, or a zombie flick, save the 'zombies' were howling rat people with more small arms than a drug cartel, and the vans were lacking in overt makeshiftness.
One could hear Za'sos shouting, but just barely. With the broken windshield, the chaos outside, the chaos inside, his shrill voice blended into the background noise turning muddled amidst their unearthly surroundings. But then, the hordes thinned, until the familiar rear entrance to the spaceport passed by his view, and he could see his brothers-in-arms waving the convoy through to the sound of Burnhams and Tactical Intervention Rifles.
Free of the strenuous confines of urban warfare, their van began to peel off. Za'sos's driving skills, though questionable for any civil life, had evidently proven well enough in the meandering chaos, but within an active spaceport he now feverishly looked for any place to drop a certain two passengers off. Matsu could swear they passed by two port gates already.
The Zetyan freighters loomed suddenly, obscured by the bulk of a Capitolite hauler which suddenly took off, its holds crammed with passengers instead of goods. Ahead, a couple of Cantonese officers were remonstrating with a crowd of angry Zetyans as the vans rolled to a halt. Alarmed by the sudden infusion of dozens more Zetyans, one of the officers began speaking urgently into his radio, whilst all the Cantonese placed worried hands on their holsters, but then Matsudaira emerged from the midst of the churning runtmass.
"It's alright captain, it's alright. These are the passengers they were waiting for; they'll be dusting off right away, just let them load their goods and people."
The captain stopped, surprised. "And just who are you?" he demanded.
Matsudaira stepped closer and spread his finger and thumb, the gold holorings flashing a symbol that was only momentarily visible. Five rings in a cross pattern, with a saltire cross bisecting them. The captain stepped back involuntarily and went to salute, but Matsu hissed at him and he stopped.
"Of...of course. You there. Proceed with embarkation." he said, before turning to his troops and waving them off.
Matsu turned to Za'sos and offered him a nod. "You should be clear. I wouldn't dawdle if I were you - the sooner you put this place to your afterburners, the better."
He stuck out a hand. "Thank you for the ride."
"...y-yeah." A moment's pause came to the Zetyan, the yokari's gesture returned shortly after. "Hey, tell your friend she did good work. The midget or whatever." If he saw Wangmo, he'd tilt his head in her direction for a moment, before nodding to Matsu and turning back to the wheel. A familiar radio was drawn to his mouth in lockstep. "Alright, c'mon! LET'S MOVE! GO!"
The quartet revved their engines and charged back towards the freighter, a large, ungainly thing that had just finished lowering the bay doors. Amidst the crowds of runt and zet, each individual clamoring to secure their spot on their ride home, having four vans was for the Kaida'kol employees a rather large boost. Heedless of the jeering and complaining behind them, they secured figurative first class seats by dint of force and automotive coercion.
Red eyes soon lit alight, arcing out like tree branches as the thing's engines roared like dragons. As soon as the crowd had been crammed into it's depths - not hard, by Zettish cramming standards - and the bay doors had been sealed airtight, the hulk lifted up, up and away into the blue sky. Matsu could faintly see it begin competitively bullying a Takeema Industries sloop out of a less cramped airspace, warning lights used as the equivalent of a truck horn as atmospheric perspective slowly shifted it out of view.