Chapter 36 - Ground control to Major Bob

I switched over to the nearest bear's view, just in time to see the Grizzly sail through the air. On fire. The bear turned to look at whatever idiot was stupid enough to fire upon my vehicle.

I have to admit, it was a fucking impressive thing. The tank, if you could call it that, was so massive it filled the entire street, all four lanes. It had eight tracks, four pairs of two, and was bustling with machine gun emplacements. The most impressive thing was the main gun, which rivaled my Ultra Heavy Railgun in size, and the barrel was glowing from the heat of firing. 

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” I yelled at the driver. “TURN AROUND AND GO BACK TO YOUR LITTLE WAR OR I SWEAR…” I didn’t finish because several machineguns all sighted the bear simultaneously and filled it with lead. I didn’t think it was completely destroyed, but it’d be out of commission for quite awhile.

I snapped the connection closed only to find both Hoppy and Arclight staring at me. “Something happened,” Hoppy declared quietly. “Didn’t it?”

“What makes you say that?” I asked quietly, as I tried my best to keep from exploding in their faces.

“You’ve got your ‘I’m furious, but I don’t want to talk about it’ look,” Hoppy explained. “It started forming just after you went quiet.”

I gave her a small smile, or at least I tried, then slowly turned towards Arclight. “Theoretically speaking, who from Denver would be stupid enough to order your troops away from the fighting, and towards the incursion perimeter?” I asked calmly.

“No one would be that stupid,” the man replied, eyeing me warily. “Although it could, in theory, pull defenders away from the conflict, it would probably just aggravate the situation. Plus there’s a chance of causing a serious antithesis incident. It wouldn’t be worth it.”

The entire time he was talking I was looking him up and down, looking for any indication he was lying. It didn’t look like it, but… “Well someone did. One of your big fucking superheavies just shot one of my vehicles,” I replied. While we were talking the massive tank swung into another street. I tried to pull the Grizzly out, but wasn’t fast enough. The thing’s barrel was smoking now, so it probably could only manage a couple more shots, but I wasn’t going to wait for it to stop. 

I was trying to stay outwardly calm, but apparently failing based upon the fact that Arclight was slowly growing more and more terrified as I approached. “Maybe you should call your people and find out. You should at least tell them they’re going to lose a tank. Okay?” He nodded slightly, so I turned back towards the building and the tracking unit of the one bear I needed right now. “BOB!” I yelled. “GO FIX IT!”

The big bear shuffled out of one of the ruined rooms and looked at me with a massive grin. “You sure?” 

“Someone’s fucking with me, and by the end of the day they’re going to wish they hadn’t. Send them a message, then bring me back the parts to replace the damage!”

“Fun!” The big bear declared. He headed towards the edge, and looked like he was about to jump off when I stopped him. 

“Take the Grizzly over to the Marsupial. It took for fucking ever to reach the area, but now that it’s here, we’re going to use it. Send Dusty back when you’re done,” I said. The bear nodded once, then immediately bounded into the IFV.

“Are you sure that was a smart idea?” Hoppy asked, obviously concerned. 

I just turned toward her and smiled. I didn’t even try to make it pleasant this time. “Yes, yes I am.”

When Arclight turned back to me a minute later, he had a look of horror on his face. “The order didn’t come from command, they have no idea why the Leviathan is attacking the perimeter!”

“Is that so?” I said idly. “We’ll see about that. Nyx…”

—

Commander Alexander Hawthorne watched as the second vehicle was thrown by the emulsion cannon. He’d seen Model Twenty Eights felled in a single shot by the Leviathan’s main gun, but these fucking vehicles remained mostly intact. Even the little fuzzy defenders were annoying. One of the big ones even managed to hit them with something that sheared one of the machine guns clear off, before bouncing off the hull. He didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if it managed to hit them head on.

“You sure this is right?” his second in command asked.

“Fuck right and wrong, you know how much we’re getting paid for this right? All we have to do is aggravate both sides and your grandchildren’s grandchildren will be set for life,” he replied. “Look, I chose you guys for this mission because I knew most of you needed the money, or wanted to see this thing fight. We cause some mischief, abandon the tank, then leave them wondering how this happened. Easy.”

The driver turned back towards the front of the cab, when everyone in the tank received a call, simultaneously. Hawthorne tried to deny it, but his augs clicked on anyway. [Greetings idiots and assholes! How are you all doing today? Oh who am I kidding, I don’t give a shit.] The voice sounded like a little girl, and no matter what he tried, Hawthorne couldn’t connect. [You see… One of you fuckwads really went for the extra mile and decided to fuck with me, instead of playing in your own little game. Well, now I’m going to play too, just to emphasize how stupid it was to get me involved.] 

The girl paused. [Helmar, you poor greedy bastards. Tried to play both sides to get a bigger piece of the pie at the end? Fine, I don’t give a shit about that. Bribing a tank crew to commit treason and elevate the conflict by breaking the incursion perimeter? Now you done fucked up.] 

Hawthorne’s blood ran cold. No one knew about their deal, and it was all off the books so no one COULD find out, who the hell were they listening to?

“It’s on the radio too,” his radio operator hissed. “Everyone is hearing this!”

[Good news! I’ve talked to the top hacker in the family, and he’s only going to take half of your current liquid assets, and your PMC contracts, so we can reinforce the perimeter you fucked up. You might have a little problem when both the board’s PMCs and Denver’s military come for you, but you should have thought of that before.]

The voice sighed. [Although I’d LOVE to leave it there, I feel I need a more… tangible reason for people to STOP FUCKING WITH ME while I’m trying to work. So please refer to this broadcast of your rogue superheavy. Bob.]

“What the fuck did she mean? She’s going to attack the Leviathan? With what?” Hawthorne hissed. “Anyone see anything?” 

The crew scrambled about, looking around different ports, and all reporting negative. 

“What the…” The entire tank dipped forward as a massive weight landed on the front armor. A smaller vehicle would have completely flipped at the impact, but the Leviathan’s rear tracks didn’t even leave the ground. Hawthorne looked out the front viewer, right into the eyes of a massive Teddy bear. This one was different, over eight feet tall, and somehow… menacing.

“Howdy,” the bear growled as he casually grabbed the barrel of the coaxial autocannon and bent it in half. “Boss wants an example made out of you, but I’m a fair bear. I’ll give you one shot before I take this tin can apart.” Then the bear casually stepped to the left, and stuck his head directly in front of the emulsion cannon. “Don’t miss!” 

The entire crew turned to look at the commander. “Don’t look at me, FIRE!” he yelled.

The power in the cabin dimmed as all power was directed towards the massive gun. After a second, it fired, raising the temperature in the cabin several degrees. 

“Stupid thing. Sticking your head directly into a multiphase plasma accelerator only has one result,” Hawthorne chuckled as he wiped the steam off his viewing window. The view on the other side was horrifying. 

The bear was still there, mostly, but the cuddly teddy bear exterior had been ripped and melted away, leaving a flaming mechanical monster. “Think that’ll prove my point. Was a little closer to my danger point than expected, good thing I have thermal armor,” it mumbled, putting one hand on the still glowing tank barrel. With just one hand it started slowly bent the main cannon sideways. Once that was done it hopped off the side, and although Hawthorne couldn’t see it, he could hear the thing smashing tracks and ripping apart turrets all around his vehicle. 

After a minute, it popped up again in front of him. It somehow already had regained a lot of its outer covering. If he hadn’t witnessed it, Hawthorne would never have thought the bear had been shot by one of the strongest tank based weapons ever developed. “I’d love to stay and chat, but we have a situation going on, so I got to go. Don’t worry, my friends will help you with the tank. It’s currently in too few pieces for our liking.”

With that the bear just hopped off the front of the tank and took off down the street.

“What the fuck was that?” Hawthrone yelled. “Did it just say friends? What friends?”

As if to answer his question the sky opened up and a half dozen huge metal boxes slammed into the ground around the tank. After a few seconds each one popped open, revealing a full squad of bears. The nearest one hopped up on the front of the tank, looked him straight in the eye, took out an axe, and started to go to work. 

An ominous sizzling sound echoed through the cab, then another. Soon Hawthorne could see small glowing streaks in the armor. Perhaps taking this deal had been the wrong move after all.