Spots: Veteran's Day, with Bugs

A Web Serial by M.C.A. Hogarth

46. Bars of Soap.	48. Surrounded.

47. Veteran's Day, with Bugs

The Warren. Team Kitty and Guests are patrolling, casually killing the first revision crabs.

Fang. "****ing insult, I tell you."

Claws. "Think of it as an opportunity to practice."

Fang, gunning down another three crabs. "How the **** is this practice? I could do it in my ****ing sleep."

Claws. "Well, I hear tell the only way to really be sure a crab is dead is to shoot it in the head."

Fang shoots the next group of three in the head, *bam* *bam* *bam*.

Claws, drawling. "And the Kings, you gotta shoot 'em at the base of the thorax too."

Fang. "I'll keep that in mind when we actually see one."

Scythe. "What's this now?"

Spots. "The lieutenant wants to make sure we deny the enemy the chance to use their own for reconnaissance. If you don't get the head on the commoners and the head and second brain on the Kings, they might live long enough to be useful."

Scythe. "****. I'm guessing she'll be wanting us to do that then."

Whiskers. "Even when we're looking at a ****ing wall of them?"

Flea, the Varmint Guest. "You saying you can't make that many headshots?"

Fang. "Get real, you ****ing ***. Even I can't take down every head on an advancing wall, and if you think you can do better we've got a date on a ****ing range where you can prove it."

Flea. "Oooh, a date. She likes me."

Fang. "Don't make me rip your ***** up through your ***, you ****er."

Flea. "Mmm, I like spicy—"

The wall beside them falls in: writhing bodies, arms, a solid wall of the new carapaces Fang found, not the older ones they've been shooting.

Spots. "Breakthrough!" Her new shield slices through four of them with a corner-of-the-eye flash of gold.

Scythe: "NORTH!"

The squad breaks that way, with Spots and Claws in the rear with shields up, intercepting a hail of alien needles.

Fang. "Finally! Something worth the ammo!"

Claws. "**** that, I didn't want more excitement!"

Scythe. "****!"

The old revision crabs have poured out of the intersection in front of them.

Scythe. "Mow them down."

Fang. "Here's your ****ing chance to make your wall of headshots, moron, let's see it."

Flea. "Are you always this much of a ****?"

Spots. "Hey! Don't call her that!"

They are in the middle of shooting a way clear through the second group.

Flea. "What? A ****? She sure acts like one."

Spots. "That's uncalled for. Don't do it again."

Flea. "Or what? ****, can't take a little—"

Spots, still shielding the rear. "SHUT UP. And tell her you're sorry."

Flea. "For ****'s sake, isn't anyone gonna say 'we're a little busy right now for this kind of ****?'"

Claws, covering the rear with Spots. "Nope."

Hairball, shooting. "Uh-uh."

Scythe, shooting. "I'm with them."

Flea. "**** you. At least I'm not getting cozy with the en—"

Spots. "Don't you dare finish that."

They kill off the second group, leaving the crabs behind them to clamber over the dead.

Scythe. "Next fox-run, take it. Let's head them off and set up on the corner."

Whiskers is the first one in the fox-run, then Hairball, then Fang. Flea is just going in after her when:

Whiskers: "****! ****! Go back!"

Hairball: "Uh, there's no going back—"

Whiskers: "****!"

The wall starts shaking. Scythe looks up at it. "Oh, ****."

46. Bars of Soap.	48. Surrounded.