In the morning, I was woken by a loving kiss from smooth, synthetic lips. Barely distinguishable from the organic variety, but I knew these ones very well.
“Hey sweetie,” Arina purred. “Let’s have breakfast, coffee is already brewing.“
I shook off the remaining sleepiness and hurriedly got into my clothes. We still had a bit of real coffee, and I would not let it go to waste! As usual, Arina also took a small cup. For the function of her artificial body it was irrelevant, but she enjoyed the taste.
I skipped the usual small talk and asked “I know Wendy and you have been running a few side projects on the small fabricators. Care to update me?”
“We have built a few more Attoscale Architects, and Wendy is in contact with a medical research institute at Victoria University. They are planning a clinical study testing the Nano-Regenerative Suite. If that comes together, we will need the extra Architects for making enough NR-Suites.”
“Excellent. We might need to free up some capacity for weapons though. The Mack attack from yesterday shows they need some pruning again.”
“What were you thinking of?”
“Rebuilding and expanding our drone stocks, and I also was thinking about an extra force multiplier. Elya, what about an autonomous version of the Mack-Zapper? Maybe built on drones so they can re-educate Mack units without me nearby?”
I have 1715 suitable drone designs, and 588 additional electro-impulse devices that could be used to upgrade and adapt the former for your purposes. Your points per kill or capture would be reduced though. The more autonomously your drones act, the lower your rewards for each neutralized Mack.
“OK, show me the options with a combat radius of at least thirty kilometers and good enough AI to recognize and electrocute Mack types without my supervision. We’ll refine it from there.“
A list of images and descriptions blurred across my vision, faster than I could follow.
That still leaves 1011 designs and 502 possible upgrades. Please let me pick out some for you, under the assumption that you need them for an assault on San Juan Island.
“Smartass. But you win this dispute. Let’s see your selection.”
After a bit of back and forth, I settled on a quadcopter the size of a small shoe box. Overall it looked, well, boxy, except for some nasty-looking pincers jutting out past the front rotors. Elya promptly presented the bill.
That will be 600 points for the blueprint. You already have the Class I Attack Drones catalog, so no extra costs here.
“Deal!”
Purchased: Lightning Mark II Crowd Controller (blueprint)
Price… 600 points
Remaining balance: One Token and 11956 points
At that point Arina excused herself, claiming that she was already late for duty. I gave her a quick goodbye kiss, then queued one of the drones up on the shelter’s fabricator.
When it was ready, I took it outside and sicced it on some trash cans. Subjected to intense zapping, the ersatz Macks were soon covered in small scorch marks. That shocker was quite a bit more powerful than the one I had mounted on my cuirass. Anna watched the spectacle with fascination and asked “The fireworks are nice, but do you really think it will kill the Macks?”
“Some of them, yes, and thanks to hacking software provided by Elya, we might even succeed in converting some to fight for us!”
Thursday, January 27th, 2050
Harnessing unused manufacturing capacity from Vanguard Enterprises, my little shelter in Colwood and even at Styx Base, I had increased my drone fleet to sixty Bombardiers, sixty Dragonflies and twenty of the new Lightnings. And that was just the air force. Dozens of ground units, mostly battlecats, were also available. The question was how to get them to the front. Time to call SHOCKS or HANAF to plan an offense.
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B.S.O.D. took the call. “SHOCKS command here, B.S.O.D. speaking. How can we help you today?”
She clearly amused herself playing some random clerk. Time for her to switch back to strategist.
“Vanguard Command here,” I said. It was time to parade my false commander persona. It seemed appropriate for what I was planning. So I continued “We are preparing for an offensive against the Mack base on San Juan Island, but transport capacity for ground troops is a bit scarce. Would SHOCKS be interested in joining the party?”
I heard a groan over the line. The answer came in a slightly exasperated tone.
“At least you are talking to us this time before you go off, you loose cannon. God knows that Mack base needs a good hammering, but we will also need HANAF for that. I’ll talk to them, be prepared to show up to a meeting on short notice!”
Friday, January 28th, 2050
It had taken another day to prepare, but now we were ready to go. That is, a platoon of HANAF soldiers, some Magical Girls including the Battle Bugs and I. Longhorn was in command of the MGs.
B.S.O.D had strongly suggested that I leave Wendy and Arina back in Victoria, and it made sense. They would not contribute more than a few HANAF soldiers, and Wendy was needed to run Vanguard Enterprises. Also, she and Arina would not make any Vanguard points unlike me anyway. On top of that, I had copied all of my blueprints to a workstation at VE and given Wendy and Arina full access. That gave them a backup function which made them even more valuable.
The first units to fly eastwards were a dozen Spectracopters, tasked to scout out San Juan Island. They detected merely a fairly small contingent of guards, light units up to the pony-sized Type 28. More were doubtlessly in the tunnels, but at the moment we could do nothing against those.
A swarm of Bombardier drones followed, with Dragonflies as escort. Finally, HANAF and the Magical Girls in helicopters and I in the Explorer. Whatever payload was not otherwise used was stuffed with Battlecats.
Minutes later, the Bombardiers arrived at the Mack base and unleashed part of their payload. I chose not to use all of it on a mere handful of guards. Even so, the robots were doomed. The vast majority of the bombs hit and each ripped one Mack apart. Mack plating rained from the skies and oil hoses exploded into streaks of flames.
The reaction was immediate and overwhelming in numbers. Hundreds of Mack units boiled from the tunnels and began scanning the sky for threats. Dozens of Type Six kamikaze drones took flight and approached my drones with a single minded instinct to kill.
“Elya, keep the Explorer on course! Launch the Lightnings!” I started throwing orders at my units through my C&C suite.
The Bombardiers dove onto the remaining Twenty-Eights like bats out of hell. A few of them fell to coil gun fire, but most managed to launch their deadly freight at their robot victims. Above them, the airspace turned into a whirlwind of Sixes trying to annihilate my drones and Dragonflies that nimbly evaded them and eviscerated them with gunfire from behind.
Only seconds later, the trend became clear. Most Bombardiers had survived. All of the Type 28 sniper Macks were lying in ruins. My Dragonflies dominated the skies and had enough ammunition left to handle another swarm of Sixes. Air superiority, how I love thee. But there was no reason to get complacent. “Elya, launch the second half of our Dragonflies and Bombardiers!”
Another swarm of drones launched from Vanguard Enterprises. With fresh batteries and full magazines, they set course for the battlefield to relieve their sisters. Meanwhile, my surviving Bombardiers were weaving between the trees, fleeing for home.
Longhorn’s voice came over the radio. “Ground attack, now!”
The HANAF helicopters set down near the Mack units. Way too close for my taste. But landing far away from the Macks myself would separate me from the troops, so I swallowed a curse and followed them down. At least the soldiers and MGs were well organized. With trained precision they got out of their helicopters and took position. I jumped out of the Explorer and took command of the Battlecats we had brought. Two dozen of them boiled out of the helicopters and out of my Explorer. But from the direction of the Mack base I could already see the enemy Battlecats surging.
Hastily I directed my battlecats to support the HANAF soldiers. As the enemy approached, the troops and my Battlecats opened fire. This HANAF unit had already switched to the Shiv railguns, and their bullets easily ripped holes through the robot monsters. My Battlecats were just as effective with their tail guns, and dozens of Macks collapsed with fire spewing from bullet holes.
It was not enough to stem the tide. Half of my Battlecats went down in a furious melee where mine and Mack battlecats were equally slashed into scrap. Seconds later the soldiers they tried to protect went down under titanium paws and plasma blasts from the enemies’ tail guns.
In a desperate attempt to save the situation, Team Battle Bug attacked the Macks from the flank. Ladybug cut loose with her trademark lightning, and it zigzagged over dozens of Macks. Half of them were immediately disabled, and a few others appeared disoriented. Immediately behind came Mantis, her bat'leth-like blade carved a swath of destruction through Mack plate. Mechanical body parts flew and spilled oil soaked the ground. Protecting the group, Pink Orchid bent plasma blasts from the Macks away with her defensive wall of force.
With the Macks being distracted, the surviving soldiers and Battlecats caught them from behind and wreaked more havoc on them. Facing immediate destruction, the rest of the metal monsters turned tail and ran. In that moment of reprieve, I looked around and wondered “Where is Longhorn?”