After weeks of non-stop fighting, the lull in a had kinda taken me by surprise. The first week I’d been stantly on edge, expeg an emergency to hit any day, but as time went on I realized what Sharron had told me before was true. Incursions and emergencies were the exception, not the rule.

  I’d spent the st month rolling out the fabricators to the surrounding neighbourhoods, and the locals had started using them to make artisan goods, and bring in a little bit of mourns out the biggest sellers were teddy bears sewn in the shape of my troops, which I’d permitted after a little bit of begging from Issi.

  The corps had only attempted to steal the maes twice. The first time they retreated after engaging the guards I left at each mae. The sed time, one of the PMCs died when she panicked after getting grabbed by a moose, and dying to the ricocheting rounds.

  That was also about the time that news came out that a group of samurai took down a global-level threat in the mountains. sidering hundreds of people saw me ehe mines, it didn’t take a genius to realize my bears were involved. The corps stopped fug with me after that.

  The shelter extension was also approag pletion. It had taken a lot of time, and effort from the beavers, but it was finally ing together. They were just putting the final touches on the lower levels, so it wouldn’t be long now until the school was done, and ready to accept kids.

  Now that there was a slight lull in my schedule, with my projects finally ing together, Nyx vinced me to travel to a field just outside the city to look at a vehicle they thought I should i in.

  “Nyx, what the fuck is this?” I asked as I stared at the image Nyx had projected into my augs. I’d e all the way out to a field just outside the city so they could show me a new vehicle through this ‘augmented reality’ system.

  The squat, flying vehicle was about fifteeers long, teers wide, and four meters tall. It looked like a flying brick, with a small cockpit on the front, and a set of massive engines on the back, but what really grabbed my attention was the cluster of two meter square, three meter tall, regur boxes hanging underh. There were ten of them, three sets of three, starting about halfway down the ship, and a single pod he back, hangiween a pair of IFVs, which were also attached to the ship. It had several PAWs empts to deal with small fliers, but only a siwin, linked, coil gun turret at the front to deal with rger antithesis.

  It looked like an abomination.

  “This is the marsupial, a specialized indepe and ship. Since you had problems retrieving your bears from the tunnels, I thought you might want to i in a ransport. Ohat actually carry more thay bears at a time,” Nyx reported. Ever since Spooky lifted, they started using Dusty as a mouthpiece. Mostly because Spooky practically freaked out every time he was chosen.

  “It’s ugly as fuck. Why does it have boxes underh?” I asked as I wandered up to the proje and stuck my head into one of the pods. It had a handful of small bear-sized restraints around the middle, and a few support items, like ser feers.

  “Those are Kiic Orbital Assault Landing Assemblies. Eae holds a full squad of bears and they be released from high altitudes to deploy bears directly into bat zohe entire ship is desigo drop bears,” Nyx expined.

  I narrowed my eyes, “That a spells Koa, is that something I should know?” I cocked my head a little. “What does marsupial stand for?” I asked.

  “Mobile Aerial Response SUPport and Indepe Authority Lander. It’s actually the perfect size for one of your Cub-mao use as a and craft. They and up to hundred bears, before and tency bees an issue, and that’s the exaumber of bears that make up both the deployment teams, and and crew,” Nyx reported.

  “I swear, you're just making shit up to make the as work,” I mumbled. “And st to make ‘Cub-mander’ a thing… I’m not calling my and bears that, no matter how much you and Spooky want it,” I grumbled.

  I wandered around the visualization, poking my head into various parts, then suddenly realized something. “Nyx… this would fit through the garage doors, even though it would be a tight fit, and it would easily fit through the access points that transports use to go between the upper and lower city… why am I looking at this here?” I asked impatiently.

  “Because you’ve barely taken any time off i month, and I thought it would be woing out for a piiyx replied.

  “Fug… I had things I wao do today!” I insisted.

  “And now you do them tomorrow,” Nyx shot back. I stared daggers at my little possessed bear. “In all seriousness, I would highly reend iing in at least one Marsupial. Your transport capabilities are already pressed to their limits.”

  “Now that I’ve fihe fabricators, and building expansion, I could build a couple Kodiaks to alleviate the pressure,” I said lightly.

  “It took you a week to retrieve all your bears, and equipment from the tunnels. That did not include the time required to dig out your squirrels. You need a bigger transport,” Nyx snapped.

  “Well I don’t like the idea of needing to use a bunch of disposable pods every time I want to deploy my bears,” I replied reflexively, trying to think of a reason not to i.

  “They’re reusable,” Nyx said.

  I stared at the fug horrible-looking craft for several long minutes. “How much?”

  “Sevehousand five hundred, and two tokens. You’ll he High-Altitude Hover Vehicle Css II catalog, along with the Emergency Deployment Vehicle Css II catalog. You came out of the battle with the Forty-Four-L with thirty-six thousand, two hundred and eleven points, and you’ve earhree hundred and twenty sihen.”

  “Fuck you and your numbers,” I said rubbing my forehead. “That means this monstrosity will take… half of my points,” I said.

  “Not quite that much, but close,” Nyx agreed.

  “Fuck it, fine. Do it,” I mumbled.

  “Really?” Nyx asked, sounding slightly surprised.

  “I said yes, didn’t I? It’s fug ugly as shit, but if it carries a hundred bears and I send Spooky to handle a situation without me, it’s probably worth it. I’ve been building twelve bears a day for the st month, I literally have HUNDREDS at this point. It would be nice if I could actually do something with them,” I huffed. “Why do you sound surprised about that?”

  “I holy didn’t think you’d buy one, I was just looking for an excuse to pull you out of the house,” Nyx expined.

  “I hate you so much.”