Chapter 267: The Militia Brought a Bigger Idiot

The creature Rusk released looked like a freight train had grown armour and developed a personal interest in screaming. It climbed out of the trailer on hooked limbs, scraping deep lines through the road while the soldiers trapped beside it discovered what their captain meant by acceptable losses.

The bait charge below our shelter flashed once before beginning its low pulse. I didn’t need thermal vision to understand the invitation, although the warm cartridge inside its casing made it easier to locate among the broken stones beneath the road barrier.

[System: That’s a hooked burrower, mate, and the captain’s brought the sort they transport in separate pieces of reinforced equipment. Move the dinner bell before it learns the buffet has a roof.]

If this is how she handles a bad review, remind me to give her uniform one star after we’ve survived the delivery. I dropped beside the charge, looped my tail around its handle and lifted it before the creature reached the fork leading towards the ridge.

Pike was bringing the detached fuel cart back along the service road after unloading its container. I asked him to leave it at the junction, then placed the bait inside its empty steel tray and fastened the loose cover so it couldn’t bounce onto somebody else’s route.

The plan was to pull it towards the abandoned crusher yard below the quarry, where the loading cranes stood over a deep work pit. It offered heavy machinery, empty ground and fewer people who would complain if I made the evening structurally interesting.

Bridget asked whether I could move the cart quickly enough, so I tested its wheels before attaching a coil through the tow ring. The jets behind my fins pushed me forward while the cart rolled beneath me, keeping its weight on the road instead of pretending I could carry a small vehicle through the air.

"Tell Lukas I’m stealing his advertising budget, because Meals on Crimes has finally found a customer with the correct appetite," I said. "Give me the route before the slogan, Matt, because I want you back with enough left to complain about," she said, then sent Pike towards the controls.

Hollis moved the trapped soldiers through a gap in their own barricade while the burrower followed the cart. One dropped his rifle to help another climb, giving me enough reason not to direct our new friend across them merely because they had worn the wrong patch that morning.

Old Mate offered Stop the Borrowed Monster for 2,000 EXP and twenty IP, payable when the burrower no longer threatened the evacuation or its escorts. Losing it in another occupied settlement would not qualify, which was becoming a deeply predictable complaint from my mission department.

[System: I know you’re offended by the conditions, champ, but sending the problem next door is what started this whole bloody neighbourhood dispute.]

I’m taking it to an empty industrial pit, so try appreciating how much effort I’ve put into finding somewhere nobody wants to live. I accepted and pulled the cart into the crusher yard, where its wheels rattled across a scale bridge above the dark opening.

A sign banned unauthorised dumping, and Old Mate added, [System: Tell council it’s the captain’s pet, mate; technically we’re reporting a lost animal with a bloody terrible attitude.]

The burrower reached the outer fence before I’d worked out which controls still had power. It pushed through the mesh without slowing, and the cart’s rear wheel caught on a broken rail just as the animal’s head rose over the loading platform.

I could abandon the bait and leave it thrashing beside a road people still needed, or attempt something Old Mate had repeatedly described as a terrible idea around friends. Bridget and Lukas were behind the reinforced control room wall, and Hollis’s group had cleared the approach.

Give me Snake-Eyes Gamble, and tell them nothing because I don’t want anyone moving closer while I do this. Old Mate made me confirm that I understood the tails result, which removed empathy and higher thought for three minutes while leaving all my aggression available for public inspection.

[System: Heads doubles luck for three minutes, mate; tails gives you three minutes of feral aggression without empathy or useful thought. Keep everyone clear, because you won’t be the lovable kind of dickhead.]

I understand the risk, so keep them behind concrete and flip it before the bastard swallows my future apologies. The System coin spun where only I could see it, turning my decision into a shining object that apparently enjoyed taking longer than necessary.

Heads landed just as the burrower’s hooked limb struck the scale bridge. A loose bolt jumped from the rail beneath my stuck wheel, freeing the cart with such ridiculous timing that I briefly wanted to apologise for every complaint I’d made about accounting.

Three minutes appeared beside the result, and I pulled the cart clear while a falling floodlight struck the creature across one eye. It roared and swung towards the light instead of me, giving Pike enough room to reach the control room door without being introduced to its teeth.

"Nobody comes onto the bridge unless I ask, because I’m attempting something that looks much better from behind concrete," I called. Bridget repeated the instruction to Lukas, who kept his injured body where it could remain somebody else’s long-term problem.

[System: Good news, champ, the crane’s control box has power. Bad news, your lucky arse still needs to read which lever does what before the universe runs out of favours.]

I headed towards the box as the burrower recovered, expecting it to follow the cart across the bridge. Instead, it drove its hooked limbs beneath the deck and lifted the whole section, tearing the tow ring sideways around my coil while the bait cart tipped towards the work pit.

The bridge dropped under us before I could let go, carrying the cart, the monster and a very lucky snake into a hole full of machinery nobody had inspected in years. Above the falling deck, my three-minute counter kept ticking as though the distance to the bottom was a personal problem.