Stray Cat Strut Chapter Twenty-Four – Just Deserter

If you want more to read, consider joining my Patreon! Or check out my other original works:

Stray Cat Strut (A cyberpunk system apocalypse!) - Ongoing

Fluff (A superheroic LitRPG about cute girls doing cute things!) - Ongoing

Love Crafted (Interactive story about an eldritch abomination tentacle-ing things!) - Completed!

Drear's Ten-Tea-Cle Café (An insane Crossover about cute people and tentacles) - Hiatus

Cinnamon Bun (A wholeso LitRPG!) - Ongoing

The Agartha Loop (A Magical-Girl drama!) - Volu Two Complete!

Lever Action (A fantasy western with cha!) - Volu One Complete!

Heart of Dorkness (A wholeso progression fantasy) - Completed!

Dead Tired (A cody about a Lich in a Wuxia world doing Science!) - Ongoing

Sporemageddon (A fantasy story about a mushroom lover exploding the industrial revolution!) - Ongoing

Past the Redline (A girl goes too fast, then she does it again) - Completed!

Magical Girl Crystal Genocide (Magical Girls accidentally the planet, and then try to fix it) - Completed!

Magical Girl Rending Nightmare (A sequel to Crystal Genocide! Cute girls in a soviet dystopia having a picnic on the roadside) - Volu Two Completed!

Noblebright (A shipcore AI works to avenge humanity) - Completed!

The Complicated Love Life of Ivil Antagonist (The Empress of Mars finds love) - Completed!

Pokebun (Broccoli Bunch in the world of Pokemon) - Hiatus

Queen Violence (An Assassin Reborn as a Kitten) - Completed!

No Strings Attached (An Elden Ring/Bloodborne inspired progression fantasy) - Ongoing

Save Scumming (A ti-looping system apocalypse) - Ongoing

Chapter Twenty-Four - Just Deserter

"Our studies have shown that desertion rates depend on several factors. The overall morale of the unit, the presence of commanding officers, the debt-coefficient of individual soldiers, as well as combat ti.

Other, less controllable variables include Visual Impact Factors. These are individual events, such as seeing an alien antagonist or an allied Samurai on the battlefield."

--Report on Troop Stability, 2031

***

I walked over to the commander, then squatted down next to him and reached over to poke at his face. He had a lot of squish to him for soone in the army. Maybe he was one of those armchair commander sorts, because it certainly looked like he spent a lot of ti sitting down.

"He's alive, right?" I asked.

"Yes," Shy said. "I used a sedative. I wasn't sure if we should kill them all?"

"Probably best not to," I said. "All of these soldiers are deserters. I don't know what the punishnt for that is, but I'm sure it's not pleasant. Anyway, we could use more bodies on the front lines, right? We can give these guys the opportunity to get back to work."

"That sa offer you made to the people upstairs?" Crisis Mode asked.

"Eh, without the window part, I think. Or the ' shooting them' part?"

Shy looked at , then tilted her head to the side slightly. She looked like a dog that had just heard an unfamiliar noise.

"We t a bunch of rich fucks way up above. Nice penthouse kind of place. They're probably the ones responsible for a lot of the problems in the city, so I gave them so, ah, hard choices to make."

Shy blinked, then looked around. "I suppose that makes sense. This group, ah, doesn't seem able to do a dia blackout. They have so tech here, but it's nothing that can handle a full-scale blackout like that."

"I, ah, don't think the dia blackout was that way," Crisis Mode said. Shy and I glanced at her, and she reeled back a little. "I an, the blackout wasn't just like a firewall. I think it was more that the news just didn't report things."

"Because the people that own all of the dia are the sa ones that wanted the dia to shut up? Yeah, that tracks. Shit. Quebec was kinda screwed from the start, huh?"

I couldn't see her face, but I had the impression that Crisis Mode cringed at that. "Seems like it. Ah, did you find anything on the Commander?"

Shy shook her head. "I didn't talk to anyone."

"Damn, that's cold. Just walked in here and put everyone to sleep, huh?"

"Sotis, not talking is... easier."

Yeah, she would say that. "Alright. But now we have all these knocked out morons to take care of an--"

A door further in slamd open and a man with ssy hair and army standard fatigues stumbled in. "I'm Shane Luchies, and I won't let you get away with this!" he shouted before charging towards us. He had a rifle and--

The man stumbled, then crashed into the floor with a dull thump.

Shy lowered a little dart-pistol looking thing and slid it back under her combat poncho. "Sorry. I missed one."

"All good," I said. "So, we calling in the army to take care of this? Juno will want to have a word with this guy." I stood and gave the Commander a little tap with the end of my boot for emphasis.

"That would be nice," Shy said. "Latyns is in their system, copying everything. There are so people on leave. We'll know where they are."

Why did that sound so creepy coming from her? "I'll send Juno a text," I said before doing just that. I received a reply just a few seconds later, thanking , then about half a minute after that a second text, letting know that a force was going to head over to take care of things here. "How long are your little knock-out needles going to last for?" I asked.

"Until they're removed," Shy said.

Well, shit. I texted that to Juno too. Maybe they'd drag the soldiers over to wherever then remove all the needles at once. That'd be funny.

"So... lunch?"

It was well past lunchti, but I was a bit peckish, and walking around this much only made it worse. Getting a bite to eat wouldn't hurt.

Shy shrugged in reply, which ant that the choice really was on Crisis Mode. She glanced between us, then nodded. "Okay? I know of a few places. Ah, if you don't mind cheaper food?"

"Not at all," I said. "Know of any place that's semi-private?"

"Sure," she said. "The food in Quebec is excellent. Do you like Greek?"

"I like potato wedges," I said.

I don't know if that was the right answer, but Crisis Mode chuckled. I gestured to the Commander. "We might want to take him along. Like, leave him in the ship, but bring him. Just in case?"

That was probably a good idea, but it also ant that I had just volunteered myself to carry the fatass. I grunted as I hooked an arm under his legs and tried to princess carry him, only that didn't work, and he was nothing but dead weight.

It took an embarrassingly long ti for to figure out how to pull him up and over my shoulder. I had to fireman carry his ass up to the elevator, then wait for us to ride back to the floor where I'd parked the Bastion.

Only once I got there, I discovered the guards and a heap of soldiers waiting for us at the very sa security checkpoint that we'd gone through on the way in.

I think a lot of them recognized the ass I was carrying next to my head, but none of them chose to comnt on how their boss was cosplaying a sack of potatoes.

"Uh, ma'am?" one of them asked.

"Yeah?" I asked, maybe a little snippy.

"Did you want your things back?" He gestured to a fold-out table set nearby. All of the fake crap I'd bought earlier was sitting on it.

I sighed. "Yeah, I ought to," I said.

It looked realistic enough that soone might try to resell it as samurai-made shit. What would happen when soone tried to use one of those on an Antithesis and it turned out to be a prop? That'd be embarrassing.

"Can, uh, a few of you give a hand? Mine's full," I said.

A couple of them did actually volunteer, though I noticed that they carried that man-portable nuke launcher as if it was made of newborn babies. Which, yeah, okay, fair.

We carried everything over to the Bastion and I had the soldiers just kind of toss it all into a corner. They were rather horrified about the way I was treating what they thought was live ordnance, but that just made it low-key kinda funny to .

I dumped the Commander in the closest thing we had to a brig, which was the bathroom, and then locked the door on him.

"Alright, so where did you say was good?" I asked.

"There's this little Greek place called Casa's that's not far from where I used to work," Crisis Mode said. "It's on street-level, and been there for a while. The owner is nice? That, and they'd deliver to where I worked without any apps or anything."

"Like... you had to call?" I asked.

Shy looked appropriately horrified at the idea of having to call a place to have food delivered, which I felt. This was 2057. No one called.

"Yes? The delivery fee was less and I think the owner's cousin was the driver? It was cheap, like I said. I've been craving so of their rice and one of their real-chicken souvlaki's for a week."

I supposed that wasn't the worst. I'd have settled for more fast-food, but that struck as better. Besides, Lucy would chide for eating too much junk. So, I kicked the Bastion into the air and followed Crisis Mode's directions. She had a bit of a hard ti finding the right street from above, but once she did, she pointed us in the right direction.

There was street-side parking available. The fact that the ship took up half of the street even while riding up on the sidewalk sucked, but what was I supposed to do? Park three blocks over? People could drive around.

The way I saw it, getting lunch was Important Samurai Business. If I didn't, I'd get hangry, and then people might die.

The waitress lady just within wasn't ready for three samurai to walk in, but she rallied and escorted us to a window-side booth, then scampered to get us so water.

"Good service," I said.

"I'm still not used to people treating weird," Crisis Mode said.

"Eh, it's fine. I figure as long as you only get used to it after you've earned it, then it's not a problem. The real problem is figuring out how far you have to go to actually earn it. But I had a solution for that one."

"What's that?" she asked.

"Huge ego," I said. "So, do they have those wedge fries here? I never got an answer on that."

***

A note from RavensDagger

Hey!

So, I... suck at marketing, and I kinda forgot to let people know that I have two new stories that launched on Amazon and more specifically, on Audible. Oops?

If you're looking for more romance and action, then I have two flavours of it for you!

BIG SPACE DOMMY MOMMY

(Think: The Expanse, but with more overpowered lesbians)

The Complicated Love Life of Ivil Antagonist

Link: sroyalroad/amazon/B0GQJVT997

TOOTH-ROTTINGLY CUTE, USELESS MORONS THAT FALL IN LOVE

(Wholeso found-family, where girls take 50 chapters to hold hands and blush a lot)

Heart of Dorkness

Link: sroyalroad/amazon/B0GT1M7SM8

Both are codies, Ivil is sci-fi space opera, Heart of Dorkness is more traditional fantasy/isekai!

Please check them out!