Chapter 270: Is Your Barrel Happy to See Me?

Being mistaken for ammunition was a new low in a week that had already included being mistaken for catering. The loading cradle dragged me towards the gun’s open feed while hot air moved through the narrow space where becoming mist would normally solve my personal problems.

[System: Stay solid, mate; that purge runs through the hot firing assembly, and I’m not watching the bastard turn my favourite dickhead into a fucking scented candle.]

Favourite dickhead is going on my business card if we survive, but first tell me which lever ends this fucking factory tour. I pressed two solid coils against the cradle guides, slowing their movement without pretending my D+ body could outpull a machine built to handle heavy shells.

Nuh-Uh had finished its eight-minute cooldown since the bus escape, including the evacuation check, the lure chase and the full three-minute gamble. Old Mate confirmed it was available, but I held it for the moment when the mechanism would have nowhere useful to send the extra weight.

Through the carrier’s side gap, I could see Bridget at the maintenance cabinet with the cover open. She called that its emergency control had power but was refusing her stop request while Rusk held the cabin override, giving us another example of machinery improving a bad person’s confidence.

Lukas remained at the crusher control room with Pike, his web-line stretched from the window to the carrier’s loose external cable. He could guide it away from the wheels and keep the cabinet connected, but pulling the armoured vehicle itself would only improve the doctor’s opinion of his stupidity.

Hollis had moved the surrendered guards behind the loading shed’s concrete wall and kept the road clear. The camp residents and rescued workers remained at the ridge shelter with Iona and Niall, which meant the captain could lose her temper here without finding civilians directly behind me.

Old Mate offered Break Their Toy, worth 2,500 EXP if we stopped the gun platform and defeated Rusk’s ability to keep using it against the evacuation.

[System: Reward’s pending until the gun’s stopped and she can’t keep using it, champ; crawling inside the bastard doesn’t qualify as ownership.]

I’m at seventeen thousand two hundred and fifty, and I’d appreciate surviving long enough to complain about the next threshold. My IP remained 180, my rank remained D+ and none of those numbers could be spent pretending the loader had become less interested in my body.

[System: Multitude’s still waiting out its three hours, champ, and the doll’s gone. You could gamble again, but tails beside your mates would turn this rescue into a fucking apology tour.]

We’re not flipping it with Bridget beside the vehicle, so help me make the equipment regret accepting me as a customer. I pushed a tendril through the service gap and caught the cradle’s release catch, feeling it move a little before Rusk forced the feed forward from inside the cabin.

A small inspection mirror showed Rusk behind the cabin controls, close enough for me to see the effort in her jaw as she held the override. She wasn’t watching the crew anymore, only the mechanism refusing her orders, and I decided making her look away could become useful once somebody found an opening.

The carrier announced a loading obstruction in a pleasant recorded voice, with the same politeness I remembered from being refused a refund, only this complaint involved considerably more of my body. "The obstruction has a name, and he’d like to speak to whichever bastard designed your complaints department," I told it.

Bridget found the maintenance diagram inside the cabinet and called out the order of its locking arms. The rear guide would release briefly before the front ram advanced, giving me a chance to shift towards the inspection slot if I stopped resisting the whole mechanism at once.

I loosened the coil holding the rear guide as it opened, then drove the fin jets hard enough to throw my front half into the wider service recess. The cradle continued forward around the remaining section, leaving me bent across the feed instead of lined neatly along it.

[System: Now use the stance, mate, and let their expensive toy discover what happens when it tries loading a council building. Fifteen seconds starts when you commit.]

I activated Nuh-Uh as the ram struck, turning the impact into a deafening PAN-THUNK that shook dust from the carrier’s roof. The guides bent around my dense body while the loading platform sank, transferring the strain into a frame that had clearly expected ammunition to cooperate.

Bridget tried the emergency stop again as the obstruction warnings multiplied. Rusk climbed halfway out of the cabin with her sidearm, but Hollis fired into the empty shield above her head and ordered her back inside before she could get a clear view of the cabinet.

The captain dropped behind cover and pulled a mechanical release beneath the hatch instead. An armoured service door opened beside the loading bay, giving Bridget a path to the manual cut-off while Lukas held its loose cable clear with his web-line.

I shouted for Bridget to take the cut-off before Rusk blocked the opening. She moved through the door behind the carrier’s bulk while Pike identified the handle through the speaker, and I kept watching the timer instead of imagining the report somebody might write about this.

Seven seconds remained on the stance when the ram tried again, producing another PAN-THUNK and a crack through the feed’s support bracket. The gun mount dipped towards the empty ammunition shed, safely away from the road, but the barrel began glowing dull orange around its heat shield.

Rusk had selected a hot purge to clear the obstruction, sending heated gas towards a body immune to impact and absolutely capable of burning. Bridget reached the cut-off as the captain stepped into her path inside the service compartment, forcing her to choose between the handle and the raised gun.

My physical defence had three seconds left, and the purge warning had two. I pulled against the bent guides while Rusk smiled through the open hatch, because the next thing her cannon intended to fire was me, and she had made sure the barrel was already hot.