Doomtrooper

Jiang Liushi woke up at around 11am. While still feeling a little feverish, his condition was much better than the previous day. The vehicle was silent as Xiaotian and Lu were still sleeping.

He didn't want to wake them up, and slowly made his way to the toilet. Once relieved, he changed his wounds dressings while occasionaly wincing. Then he went to the shower. There was an indicator there to keep track of the amount of water available. Unfortunatly for him, it was running low. So he gave up on the shower so the sisters could enjoy it, especially after all the efforts they did the previous night.

On top of staying vigile for him, they had transfered all the supplies from the old trailer to the new double one. It was a good thing that he had the rought terrain pallet mover, and the trailers had lifts. They would have had a harder time otherwise.

After wiping his body clean, he went to the kitchen and started to make breakfast. Xiaotian was the first to wake up, and after greeting each others, she insisted he pause in his cooking so she could check his condition. That awakened Lu, and when her sister checked on her as well, they were all pleased to see that she had made a full recovery.

Then Lu went to use the shower. A moment later, her head came out of the bathroom.

"Brother Liushi, we're low on bath water."

"I know. I used body wipes this morning. You are ladies, so I left you the running water."

She smiled, trotted to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you, brother Jiang. You're the best" she said before returning to the shower room.

Xiaotian had opened her mouth in shock of her little sister actions, but said nothing. Liushi blushed a little, and neither girls missed it. They found him cute. Xiaotian was thankful as well, and after seeing Liushi's reaction, got a bit mischevious. She approched behind him and gave him a kiss on the other cheek.

"Thank you, brother Liushi."

His blush increased twofold, and he mumbled a reponse while concentrating on cooking. It was a rare thing for him to receive kiss from 2 attractive girls, and that was only when he and his sister visited their uncles, aunt and cousin. In others words, until then it only happened with family. He was embarrassed. But he also enjoyed it a lot.

Since they got up late, Liushi made a hearty breakfast. They finished shortly before noon, and prepared to leave the place.

First, he had to take Lu on a test drive in the Doomtrooper. Just like her sister she learned to drive with their father. But his car was slightly different from what she was used to; he wanted her to get a handle of it before they left. He armed the turret. Even though he put the 12.7mm for mutant beasts, he was eager to try it. He was willing to waste a few rounds (or a few dozens) on zombies. He also wanted to try the infantry weapons, so he took 2 submachine guns and 2 assault rifles with him.

While they went out, Xiaotian had the task to put the rest of the gathered materials in the second trailer. On their little trip, Liushi and Lu saw that more zombies had come to their bloody circuit from the previous day. They realised that they had been attracted by the scent of blood. After all, they had turned the streets red with crushed zombies.

The zombies weren't the only ones attracted by the blood. There were also a lot of scavengers, crow, rodents and insects. Even though they weren't mutated ones, they were bigger than usual by at least half. The flies were the size of a thumb, and the 2 humans couldn't help but look at them with incredulity and a bit of fear.

'I must make a flamethrower to deal with swarms of small creatures.'

As Lu drove around at various speeds, Liushi had a bit of fun with the turret. There was a control panel on the copilot seat, with a retractable joystick. It reminded him much of the FPS he played with his friends. His mood dropped thinking about them. They weren't close, but he liked them. He had tried to warn them, and in hindsight, though it might have been better to show them a bit of the Starseed abilities. If they didn't turn into zombies, they would have had better chances of survival.

Shooting a few rounds of 12.7mm at zombies did help raise his mood. It was exciting for him to use a firearm. Still, he felt pity for anyone who had been gunned down by that monster. Headshots took out a arge part of the skull, and limbs were torn if not ripped clean of the rest of the body. The bullets likely turned organs into mush when they passed through them.

Halfway during their trips, they made a few stops to try the submachine guns and assault rifles. Liushi could only try the submachine gun. His dominant arm was injured, so he couldn't hold any firearm properly. He had to hold it with just his non-dominant arm, and the results weren't stellar.

Lu's shoulders couldn't handle the recoil of the assault rifle for a long time, and was more comfortable with the submachine gun. It would still take her some practice to be really efficient with it. With the upgraded factory, producing amnutions wouldn't be a problem, and there was no shortage of target practice. They would be able to train a lot.

[Energy core detected.]

They were on their way back to their temporary base when the Starseed announced its discovery. That was all the warning he got before focusing on the turret control.

"Mutant beast" was all he said, and Lu got more alert.

The creature was stalking them from the roof of the nearby buildings. They didn't notice it because they expected the beast to be on the ground. So they were really surprised when a blur came from the roof of a 2 story building on their side and crashed on the windshield with a thunderous noise.

The windshiled creaked and buckled slightly for a split second before returning to its normal state. The starglass wasn't a completly rigid material, it was flexible to absorb the energy of projectiles or bodies striking it.

Lu squeaked and jerked in fright, temporary losing control of the vehicle. Liushi couldn't contain his strangled cry of surprise as well. The mutant beast was a massive brown and grey cat, around 1.5m in height, with sharp claws the size of a finger that violently and purposefully scratched the windshield. The beast had been trying to break through it with the initial assault to kill the driver.

Lu stepped on the brakes, and the beast slid from the hood of the car, its claws making a loud gratting noise against the metal. The mutant cat observed the car curiously, as it didn't manage to damage it like the other vehicles it had attacked before.

It gave Liushi the time to mark it on the turret targeting system. When the machine gun pointed in its direction, the mutant cat jumped away, sensing danger from the strange machine. A burst of bullets passed through the place it had been and impacted on the ground, tearing small chunks of road. Seing this, the beast saw the vehicle as a threat, but before it could do anything, it had to move as the turret had continued to track it. The bullets only hit the surrounding vehicles and buildings.

"Get us out of here!" Liushi ordered his companion.

"O-okay."

As the car surged forward, Liushi stopped the turret's assault. It turned to slowly to keep up with the beast, and he didn't bring enough ammos for a real battle. He had to lure it in a position where it wouldn't have the chance to dodge.

Seeing the assault stop and its prey getting away, the mutant beast gave chase. The turret was pointed straight behind, so the beast took care of staying out of its way, running on the sidewalk. The beast was fast, and quickly reduced the distance with the car. Liushi could clearly see it on the rear-view mirror and was impressed. The beast lept once to land on top of a delivery truck, deforming its body, then lept once more, this time landing on top of the Doomtrooper.

And it attacked the turret.

"Shit!!"

Liushi panicked, hearing the sound of twisting metal on the roof of the car. He immediatly opened fire.The beast roared in pain and fell to the side as one of its front limb with the first few bullets, breaking the bones. Unfortunatly for Liushi, the canon had been twisted and the machine gun broke with the following bullets.

"Aaah! My new turret!" cried Liushi in horror. Lu looked at him, askance.

"Stop! Reverse and hit this mother fucker!"

Lu's eyes widened, but she followed the order. She was both amused and disturbed by his indignation, and felt was eager to get back at the beast that made her have such an embarrasing reaction in front of someone she admired and was starting to like.

She reversed and stepped on the gas, and the car moved backward at a surprising speed. There wasn't just one speed in reverse with that car. There were 3, with automatic transmition. It could reach 120km/h in reverse. The beast, still distracted by its wound, reacted to late to the return of the armored vehicle.

Its wounded leg hindered its mobility and it was heavily hit in the hip. It fell to the side between 2 vehicles, and scrambled to try to get back up. But Liushi wasn't going to let it leave.