Sexy Sect Babes Two: Chapter Fourteen (Patreon)

In the short time they had been around, the Kang crawlers had developed something of a reputation. Gao watched as crowds thronged the sides of the route his convoy was taking towards the outer walls.

He could admit that they likely made for an awe inspiring sight. The massive crawlers pounding down the street like the mighty elephants of the Eastern provinces, while the members of the militia in their gleaming steel suits marched in lockstep behind them, gonnes held in parade position while their distinctive blue capes fluttered in the wind.

It was enough that even the ridiculously tall helmets worn by his infantry didn’t look quite so ridiculous anymore. Instinctively, his hands moved to touch his own helm, a rather simple padded leather cap. The dark brown garment was designed more to protect him from banging his head in the cramped interior of the crawler rather than deflect the thrust of a blade.

As the commander of the crawler, his was also equipped with a beak at the front, designed to keep the sun from his eyes when he was standing in the cupola.

Which was why his view of the many men, women, and children lining the street around him was entirely unobscured by the sun overhead.

He also knew the reason for this procession, beyond the obvious. The people of Ten Huo needed hope. For the first time in history, the Great Enemy were coming. No longer were they a vague threat from beyond the walls, they were here, in the Empire.

The boogeyman was here, and he was coming for them.

And the crawlers were big, loud, and looked strong.

Even a few cultivators had turned out to see the mysteriously summoned warbeasts of the equally mysterious Jack Johansen. The groups of dangerous young women weren’t hard to spot, surrounded by mortal guards as they were, their presence creating gaps in the crowds from which the aristocrats could view the procession unmolested by the unwashed masses.

"Look at that, old man, you’ve even got cultivators coming out to see you," Gao murmured, tapping the side of the great metal beast.

In truth, Gao had no idea why the hidden master had named the beasts after their old commander. It wasn’t something he’d expected of a cultivator. Even one like the Overseer, whoseemed to actively care for the people he commanded.

In Gao’s mind, it was the care of a man maintaining his tools. He didn’t mean that maliciously. It was simply the way of things. The master was an immortal and they were mortals. They weren’t the same and never would be.

Thus it was not affection that drove his lord to act as he did, but pragmatism.

He knew both Ladies An and Ren thought their master’s work with the militia to be a side-project. A supplement to his personal strength.

Gao was not so sure.

Since they’d arrived in the city, there was a… franticness to the Hidden Master that Gao well recognized from his time serving under Kang. The man was martialing as much power as he could – and the fact that most of his time was spent improving the power of the militia rather than practicing or cultivating was telling.

No, the militia were where the man’s strength lay, not his personal strength at arms. Otherwise the new armored suit he kept stuffed in the back of the fort would be finished by now, rather than languishing unfinished in obscurity while the militia received device after device like some kind of favored son.

The captain glanced back to where two new items hung on the belts of the infantrymen marching behind the crawler. The revolver pistol, once the domain of sergeants alone, now served as a potent backup weapon for the rank and file of the Jiangshi militia. And on the other side of their belt sat an innocuous apple-sized ball with a tiny catch on the top.

A ‘grenade’.

Gao had seen the latest contraptions in action and he doubted he was alone in being uncomfortable at the thought of having such a device at one’s side at all times. So much so that he was thankful for the fact that his dual role as captain and tank commander precluded it.

What if it malfunctioned and just… went off? He thought. Or worse, what if a cultivator caused a spark to go off within the casing?

He’d voiced those concerns – safe in the knowledge that his lord was not a man offended by polite criticism – but he’d been promised that they would not occur. Could not occur. The explosives were actually two different reagents within the device that needed to be mixed before they became… explosive.

A mixture that would only occur once the slide on top was removed from the main body of the grenade.

Gao accepted his master’s words as truth, but in truth that didn’t change his discomfiture at the thing’s presence.

Still, regardless of his discomfort, they were a powerful new tool for his people.

They’re certainly an effective means of disrupting a charge, he thought.

Suddenly, a voice interrupted his thoughts, the crackle of his radio coming to life as the commander of the second crawler spoke up. “Sir, how long do you think it will be until Fanrong receives a flame-snout like Huo?”

Gao couldn’t help but smirk at the names. It was perhaps inevitable that the crews would name their new warbeasts – and dote upon them as befitting the steeds they intended to ride into battle.

He didn’t mind. Truth betold, he found it much more normal than the peculiar habit amongst some of his infantry to name their gonnes and treat them as if they were alive.

By contrast, it would have been almost sacrilege not to do so with the crawlers. They weren’t cultivators like the Hidden Master, who could command beasts such as this without care or compassion. No, as mere mortals it behooved them to appease the animals they intended to ride.

To that end, the ‘older brother’ was named ‘Fanrong’ after the sound his snout made when he vented his fury. The ‘younger brother’ was named Huo, or simply, fire. And like his namesake, seemed determined to outshine his older sibling.

Something that became evident within the first few attempts to employ the crawlers in mock combat.

Fanrong’s snout simply lacked the speed to track a cultivator. If already aiming at cultivator, a kill was near assured by the wide spread of powerful rounds Fanrong produced, but after the first time he vented his fury – using rubber pellets – the Imperial cultivators they were ‘sparring’ against all quickly learned to avoid the Fanrong’s snout.

It was a shame. Fanrong’s snout was theoretically useful for killing large swathes of mortals, but that trait was made redundant by the milita’s own gonnes. That wasn’t to say he was useless. He could break a charge at distances well beyond even the loftiest grenade throw… but so could Huo’s flamethrower.

And Huo’s flamethrower came with the added benefit of being useful against cultivators.

At least, those without the ability to command fire, Gao thought as his gaze slid across a few watching members of the Silver Paw sect.

Which was, admittedly, an overwhelming majority of cultivators. Those with the power to command a single element were a cut above the norm. It was the kind of thing only some sect elders and leader could do – if rumors were to be believed.

Though if I have a crawler going up a sect elder without cultivator or infantry support, I’ve clearly fucked up somewhere.

No, Huo’s small weakness was more than made up for by his utility. He could easily break a charge of mortals, but he was also effective at herding – not killing - cultivators. Huo’s snout was easy to dodge, yes, but the wall of fire it produced cut off avenues of retreat.

Or allowed for a retreat on the militia’s part with the wall of fire acting as a shield.

With Huo’s next sibling already… being birthed, Gao was already envisioning a strategy whereby two crawlers could flank each side of an advancing block of infantry, forcing an attacking cultivator to either brave the flames or attack a wall of bullets head on.

Perhaps then the addition of Fenrong’s cannon wouldn’t be such a waste? The three siblings could form an advancing phalanx with infantry shielded behind them to deal with any wide flankers.

Gao had quickly learned the dangers of leaving the crawlers without support, the animals themselves dumb and lethargic, while the crew inside had only limited vision from the sight-slits within.

And as they’d discovered, a cultivator was quite capable of tearing off the vehicle’s cupola – if and when they located it – to get at the crew within.

“Sir?”

Gao shook his head, turning around to gaze at the man he was speaking with in the rear crawler. It was a little odd, speaking ‘face to face’ while knowing his voice wouldn’t bridge the gap between them – the convoy was simply too loud - but knowing his radio would.

“Master Johansen is currently meeting with the Magistrate about the disturbance caused by his ‘air-mines’ the other day.” He paused. “After that, he will be putting up another refugee sky-block for Lady Shui. I imagine he should get around to Fanrong’s retrofit later this evening or tomorrow morning.”

The mines made sense to Gao, he knew he’d certainly started asking questions when explosions started going off above the compound. The sky-blocks that were now going up all across the city though? No, why the cultivators of Ten Huo suddenly cared about the plight of the homeless men and women within their city, Gao didn’t know.

But he was glad for it.

“Do you have any idea what the master will do with Fanrong’s old snout once it’s removed?” the other tank commander asked.

And hadn’t that been a difficult conversation to have. In the end the master’s mistress, Lin herself, had to come down and assure the crew of Fanrong that the removal of his snout wouldn’t hurt him.

Still, the lieutenant’s question actually took the captain off-guard. “What do you mean?”

Across the distance, he watched the diminutive form of the young woman shrug. “I just thought that it seems a bit of a waste to let it just sit around. I mean, it’s not ideal, but it’s still useful as a really big slow gonne. Makes me wonder if we could just… shove wheels on it or something so we could roll it around.”

Gao glanced down at the crawler’s long snout.

“I don’t know. I’ll bring it up at the next meeting.”

Would that anger the crawler, if it saw its disembodied snout being wheeled about? He knew that Huo had once refused to stand up after being incorrectly fed water rather than the refined oils that the creatures preferred.

“Behind you sir.”

Gao didn’t need to turn around, he slipped back into the tank, closing the cupola behind him – lest the thing be sheared off as Huo passed through the low ceiling of the gate.

As he did, he couldn’t help but note with some grim amusement that someone had painted teeth around the rim of the cupola.

He couldn’t deny there was some grim humor to be had in the idea the cupola was Huo’s mouth.

For the same reason that he couldn’t deny some of the small disquiet as he settled down into his commander’s chair. He was now inside the beast, and the humming presence of Huo’s insides were all around him. The hum of his heart. The thumping of his legs. The eagerness of the muscles in his neck as his snout moved to track a target.

From in here he could feel it.

The crawler yearned for war.

“Soon,” Gao promised the great beast. “Soon.”

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“What’s that?”

“A cannon.” Jack said as a pair of ceiling mounted pneumatics arms lifted the detached gun assembly from a crawler’s turret. “One I will be soon be swapping out for another flamethrower.”

Lin smirked at the sight as she remembered having to assure a group of big burly men – and the crew’s single short but burly woman – that removing the cannon from Fanrong wouldn’t hurt the machine.

Part of her had almost wanted to explain to the tankers that the vehicles weren’t actually alive. That they were really just incredibly complicated wagons. But in the end amusement factor won out over her desire to educate her fellow peasants, and thus she kept silent on the subject.

…She might also have been worried that explaining the reality of the situation might get other people wondering if other feats of her master were also the product of incredibly complex machanisms at work.

Before deciding that doing so was pretty pointless.

The reality of things was too absurd.

Because the idea that the machines were strange animals was a hell of a lot more reasonable than the idea that they were somehow… thinking, but still not alive, crossbows with legs.

No, strange beasts summoned from beyond any lands known of by the Empire made a hell of a lot more sense from her point of view.

Hell, Elwin even keeps calling them golems, she thought.

For that reason, she wasn’t exactly worried about her master’s secret being found out anytime soon.

“What are you planning do with the old gonne?” She asked casually.

The big man shrugged. “At this point? Nothing. I mean, I might melt it down at some point for the metal, but right now it’s simpler to just make new stuff rather than recycle old.”

Lin frowned. For a woman who had grown up eking the absolute most use out of every item her family owned, from dresses to farming tools, the idea of just casting aside something that still worked grated on her. Not when it could be repair or repurposed.

“Seems wasteful,” she pointed out.

“Heh.” The man just laughed. “Gao said the same thing. He was wondering if I could turn it into some sort of field cannon?”

“Isn’t it already a cannon?” Lin pointed out.

“No,” her master said, before hesitating. “Well yes, but, you know what? I’ll just show you.”

Reaching for the tablet at his side, her tapped it a few times with one hand – the other still directing the arm’s holding the cannon – before a hologram blurred into being in front of Lin.

It was exactly what Lin had been expecting to be honest. A variant of the gonne the crawler had used, but detached and mounted on a pair of large wheels.

“Seems simple enough. Why not make it?”

“Too slow.” Jack shook his head. “These things were used to blow open castles, things like the crawler or lots of men grouped together. Basically big slow shit that couldn’t dodge and was easy to hit.”

She could see the issue. “The opposite of a cultivator.”

He nodded.

“You know our enemy won’t just be cultivators? The Instinctives have plenty of mortal tribesmen with them too?”

In many ways, the Instictive tribes were a dark mirror of the people of the Empire.

Jack shook his head again. “Mortals, we can already kill easily. What we need is a reliable cultivator killing weapon - and these are too slow for the job.”

Lin glanced down at the cannon again. “So you would use something like this if it could aim faster?”

His attention was already wandering back to controlling the arms. “Sure.”

Lin watched as the giant gonne was slowly lowered to the ground, an idea forming in her mind.

------------------

It was three days later that she finally put the final stages of her plan into motion.

“Milady, this is…”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Han’s bellyaching. He’d complained when they’d taken the cannon. Complained when he made the cradle. And now he was complaining as they got ready to test it.

“It’ll be fine.”

The man seemed to think they were stealing the cannon. He was wrong. Jack didn’t care about it, and she’d told him as much many times.

Though perhaps he might care a little more if this works out, Lin thought giddily as Han wheeled the cart covered rickshaw through the late night streets.

“Milady, we should have at least brought a guard or two with us,” he whispered. “The streets aren’t safe at night these days.

Once again, Lin had to resist the urge to roll her eyes at her partner in crime’s insistence on calling her ‘milady’. She wasn’t a noble. As far as everyone was concerned, she was just the mortal girl her boss was boning – and she wasn’t even doing that either!

Though he wasn’t wrong about the last bit. The streets weren’t safe at night. Fortunately for them, she’d chosen a route perpendicular to where Jack had recently constructed a sky-block, so for the first time in months, the streets leading up their destination were nearly deserted.

“Why would we needs guards with us when I have a strapping young man like you with me?”

The blacksmith visibly swelled with pride at her words, his gait growing a little long as they trundled along.

Truth be told, Lin was relying less on Han’s protection so much as the two revolvers on her side, but she saw no harm in letting him think she was entirely dependent on his ‘manly’ protection.

Fortunately for them, they arrived at the communal sparring yards without interruption.

The goat-kin wasted no time in helping her ox-kin companion pull the sheet off the now wheeled cannon, now mounted upon what looked for all the world like an oversized upside down stirrup. One which moved on greased hinges as she it pointed in the general direction of a group of targets usually used for cavalry to practice lance charges.

“Now.” She bit her lip. “How to do this.”

Despite having spent the last three days working on the thing, the operation of the cannon was unfamiliar to her. Fortunately, she’d gotten instructions from the man who was originally supposed to operate the cannon as part of the crawler’s crew. The young man was easily plied with a drink and a few sultry glances.

Much in the same way she’d plied Han, honestly.

Though as she set about loading a live round into the breech, she found she hadn’t really needed the help. The design was basically just the same as the first type of gonne Jack had built but scaled up and with the breach at the back.

Which fit what she knew of Jack to a tee. More to the point, she’d practiced using those early rifles and still remembered how they operated.

Grinning as the weapon was primed, she gripped the newly installed handles at the back of the cannon and used them to swivel the gun around. It was easy, or close to it, for even a woman with her delicate frame.

Up. Down. Left. Right. The gun turned almost as quickly as a man holding a gonne would.

The swivel-mount worked!

“You do good work,” she grinned turning to Han, who’s bright blush was visibly even in the moonlight.

He shook his head. “It was your design milady, I only followed it.”

Perhaps in another life, she might have found herself enamored with the simple blacksmith in that moment. Young. Handsome. Well built from his time in the forge. Kind and modest – if a little lacking in daring – she could have seen herself… if not happy, then content spending a lifetime with him.

How things change, she thought as she turned her attention back to the cannon.

Now she just had to fire it.

Beside her, Han stiffened as her fingers wrapped around the trigger. “Milady, I’m still not sure this is a good idea…”

Lin shook her head. “You’re right… it’s a bad idea!”

She pulled the trigger.

And everything exploded.

------------

“Owie.” Lin moaned from her prone position on her bed.

“Thanks,” Jack said as one of Ren’s healers left the room, before turning back to the woman on the bed, his eyes lingering on her bandaged and now splinted arm.

He’d already gotten the details, from both her and the terrified young man that had carried her back to the compound after the accident.

For some reason, the poor lad seemed to think they were both going to be killed and seemed completely perplexed when Jack had gifted him a small bag of coin and sent him on his way,  once he’d gotten the whole story.

A well deserved bag, thinking back to the device – split in twain during the accident – that his militia members had so recently collected from where it had been left in the training area.

“So…” he said, turning his attention back to the sheepish looking young woman in front of him. “What have we learned tonight?”

Lin stared down at her sheets as she mumbled out an answer. “Don’t play with things I don’t understand.”

Jack paused, perplexed.

“Actually, no. I was going to say that you shouldn’t work with shoddy materials. Truth be told, I’m actually rather impressed with what you and that lad came up with otherwise.”

Lin’s eyes widened comically as she shot up in her bed. “Really!? But it broke!”

“Yeah, I mean, the cannon was a bit large for the mount so it snapped clean off at the base when you fired it.” He paused. “Still, the principal was sound.”

“Really?”

He grinned. “Yep, looking at the design, I’m actually planning to make a lot more variants of your… U-cannon?”

For the first time that night, some of Lin’s usual cockiness seemed to come back into her. “It’s a swivel gonne!”

“A swivel gun?” He smiled, before a stray thought hit him. “Huh, I swear I’ve heard that term before somewhere.”

He shook his head. “Either way, I’m planning to make a lot more of your swivel guns, just with a smaller cannon and a tripod base rather than an old rickshaw.”

Lin’s grin was actually so bright and proud it almost hurt him to look at.

God help me, she’s going to be insufferable after this, he thought. Still, it needs to be done. I’m just not smart enough for all this shit, but it seems I don’t have to be.

Not when there was apparently a wealth of intelligence just lying around. He just needed to tap into it.

Not unlike mining, he thought.

“Look,” he began. “I know you’re busy with all the flight stuff I have you doing, and generally keeping Elwin out of trouble, but I have a few more things I was thinking of having you look at. Perhaps I might even round up a few more smart people like the lad who helped and I might see if I can’t get their thoughts too. Maybe make it semi-official little thing. With a budget and stuff.”

Oh god, he hadn’t thought her smile could get wider but apparently it could.

“I’d like that. A lot.”