Stray Cat Strut

Interlude - The Samurai's Samurai

Susan shifted. He was on a soft cushion, one filled with a pad of a gel-like substance that had tiny motors within that kneaded the muscles of his leg, preventing them from falling asleep even after hours of being sat in seiza.

It was a nice thing to have at the moment, because he had spent the day sitting here, and it didn't look like it would change any time soon.

Susan was in a well-appointed room. Traditional walls, but spaced far apart, a great glass wall that overlooked Tokyo, and a long, low table where he and his business partners could sit and discuss the current business.

That business was the Big Gun group's attempt at shaking up Phobos.

"The projectile is on its final approach," Hex Kagome said. The many tiny panels over his eyes flashed through a quick pattern, then he nodded. "Our surveillance drone should be able to capture it."

"Do we know what they've sent?" Sentai Blue asked.

"I don't care what it is, as long as it explodes in a fun way," Nya replied.

Susan looked over the group. These were three of the nearly hundred Ronin that made up the Keiretsu. A full quarter of their organisation was invested in this one project, but many of the other samurai who were assisting could not be here now.

A few had come to witness the first strike of their kamikaze drones first hand, but then they'd left, preoccupied by other matters. The global incursion wasn't terrible for Japan, but it was putting a great strain on their more land-bound allies. Phobos was a problem they all had to deal with, but it lacked some intimacy for some of them.

Susan took hold of a cup of warm tea--kept at the perfect temperature for sipping, and raised it to his lips. When he lowered it, it was to eye Nya. "Please calm down. I'm certain that our allies will do what they can."

She grinned, then stretched all the way back, almost as if to show off the level of flexibility her oft-modified body held. "I'm sure. You saw their leader, n-yeah?"

"Yes, I saw her," he replied socially. "And she is not, as far as I can tell, their leader, merely their spokesperson."

"Their spokescat."

"No," Susan said.

She grinned, and he refused to look at her anymore, at least for the moment. He wondered what it would be like to work with Ronin who weren't as insufferable. Nya had always had a... thing for her theme. Actually, he could say that about a lot of Ronin, himself included. There was a significant difference between the Ronin of Asia and the Samurai of the west, and it wasn't just their strange nomenclature. There was a cultural difference as well.

"Looks like it's starting," Sentai Blue said. The man's face was covered by a tight helmet which disguised his visage, blue and black with some light silver trim. Not dissimilar to all of the other Samurai and Ronin that adopted the Sentai name. His visor glowed, and Susan imagined that he was observing the attack even now.

There was no question that Hex Kagome could see everything through his own interface. Susan reached down to the smooth wooden surface of the table and his fingers found a hair-thin crack that opened as he swiped past it. There was a jack within, one that he pulled out and carefully slotted into a corresponding connection near his temple.

His augs warmed, and his vision was overtaken by visuals from their surveillance drone nearer to Phobos.

In the time it took to blink, he was in space. The change made his stomach twist--he had never been good about vertigo--but he didn't allow any of that to show. Soon enough he grew used to the fixed position. He could turn his head to see more, but even then the angle was somewhat limited, as though he were standing before a large bay window.

A green circle appeared on his heads up display, then a red one. The green over the location of the Big Gun's first shot, the red over the distant speck that was Phobos.

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"Time?" he asked.

"The projectile is approaching quickly," Hex Kagome said. "Under a minute until impact." The voice had come from right next to Susan, as though the ninja were standing over his shoulder.

"So, we have a minute to chat, is what you're saying, nya?" Nya said from over the other shoulder.

Susan closed his eyes, for what little good that did. "Please don't start," he said.

"Why ny-ot?" she asked.

"Because I can only endure you so much," he replied, and it was the honest truth. He'd been forced to be in the same room as the cat-woman for hours already. The sad truth was that Nya was one of the better, older, and more dangerous Ronin in the Keiretsu, one of those just barely too weak to be around Mars at the moment, and until their elites returned, she had some amount of influence. She was still a thorn in his side, but that was an issue of clashing personalities, not incompetence.

"Nya nya nya!~" she sing-songed right in his ear.

He sighed. "Brain-rot generation," he grumbled under his breath, but not so low that she wouldn't hear.

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It set her off laughing.

"It's starting," Sentai Blue said.

Susan refocused in time to see a small spark of an explosion within the centre of the green circle.

"Did... it get intercepted?" he asked.

"No," Hex Kogame said. "Look."

A sub-screen popped up before him, a zoomed in section of Phobos that was even now roiling and expanding as the surface exploded outwards.

"What was that?" Nya asked.

"A Casaba-Howitzer. A nuclear explosion used to propel a plasma projectile forwards at ridiculous speeds," Hex reported.

The explosion continued to spread across the close-side of Phobos. It was impressive... but less so than any one of the nuclear strikes they'd landed with their kamikaze drones. "It's penetrative," he said.

Hex chuckled. "It should be."

Telemetry and early scans returned, and the AI currently controlling what they were seeing ran the numbers and showed them a timelapse of the seconds before and after impact. "Hmm," Susan said.

The moon's shaking actually served as a decent way to get a better picture of what was happening beneath the surface, and what was happening was impressive.

The plasma from the Big Gun's shot had pierced through the outer crust of the moon and wedged itself deep within. It had run out of energy eventually, but not before leaving cracks in every direction, like putting a bullet through a glass pane.

"Overall damage?" Susan asked. It was an impressive strike, deeper than any of theirs, but...

"Light," Hex said. "Localised. It's a needle in the kidney where what we did was like a dozen strikes to the chest. It's more internal damage than what we did, but it won't take the moon out yet."

"Hey, our friends are helping. Maybe that new cat girl's just testing her claws, nya?"

Susan sighed, then reached up and pulled the jack away from his temple. He blinked a few times as his vision cleared and he was seeing the room as it was once more. "We'll be trading blows with Phobos for some time, I suspect."

Nya blinked back to the present as well, then gave him one of her ever-irritating grins. "Like playing with a mouse, no?"

"Less a mouse and more an angry dragon," he said. "We're projecting a victory, destroying Phobos long before it arrives on Earth, but that's assuming that we continue to ramp up our production and our assault. Let's not fall into complacency."

"Mhm, mhm!" Nya agreed. "More importantly, I wanna go see my fellow cat! Do you need anyone to meet with the Big Gun crew face-to-face?"

"No," he said.

"Are you suuuuure? Nya?" she asked. This time while flopping down onto the table and half-rotating around with her arms outstretched. Sentai Blue carefully moved his tea out of knocking range.

"I'm positive," he said. Though... now that he thought about it, that would get her out of his hair... and hearing... "Actually, perhaps something could be arranged after all."

***