Existential Threat: Chapter 14 Part 2 of 2 (Patreon)

“Dropship Three two, this is Echo squad lead, giving you a marker for a landing zone,” he marked the landing pads.

“Thanks Echo, we could do with a re-arm.”

“Understood, you’ll be on your own to scrounge up, but use some of the broken up salvage and that should be fine. Have a chat with the engies over at the factory warehouse. They’re focused on building up bot numbers though.”

“Gotcha. Thanks Echo.” Luke heard the engines in the distance, the dropship cutting in over the trees.

“Not a problem.” Luke titled his head to Moose walking to him.

“You notice that the Orkarans seem to have more ammo than when they started?” He crouched down.

Luke squatted, picking up a rock and tossing it, surveying everyone.

“They keep putting magazines in that pouch on their side and taking them out,” Moose pointed with a rock and tossed it.

Ken gave Gra and two others a magazine each, they put it into a pouch hanging at their hip and shook the pouch around.

He had six other magazines on his armor.

Luke frowned. “Shiro gave him two right? And we haven’t given him any, what the?” He tapped the ground and rose up, it felt good on his knees.

“What’s our plan Luke?” Jynx asked.

“Head back to the factory warehouse, gather up some squads and head out towards the towns. Just gonna go chat with Ken.”

“Alright, you need us round here?”

“No you can head back,” Luke walked towards Ken, Moose trailing behind.

“Alright,” Jynx said. “Any problems?”

“Don’t think so, just curious.”

“Alright,” Jynx said. She slowly moved on his map, heading in the direction of the warehouse and also covering his left side, while Fin moved in a way he could cover Luke’s right.

Ken looked up from his talk with Gra, there were several others around eating and drinking, planning.

Gra drank deeply from his canteen, water running down his chin coming up with a gasp.

“Hey Ken,” Luke said. The whole group turned to him.

“Your magazines, uhh this might sound odd, but where did you get more?”

“The goop made more.” He patted his pouch.

“Goop?”

“Yeah,” Ken sounded confused as he opened the pouch.

A magazine lay in nanites, a second half-formed.

Luke took a step forward. They were having to print up ammunition and bots making a balancing issue a serious problem.

“How does that work?”

“You take a finished thing of metal, has to be metal, you put it in a bag made of organic material, you pour the goop on, leave it for a few minutes, then you drop materials in, the goop will re-create the first thing identically.”

It serves as a live blueprint.

“Its how we’ve been making all our weapons and ammunition, Aer never knew the value of it,” Gra said. “So we’re going out to the other towns and villages around here?”

“Yeah, one second,” Luke held up his hand.

“One second?” Gra looked around at the others.

“Human for he needs a pause,” Ken said.

“Hey Engineers, take a vat of nanites, throw a full magazine into it,” He flipped to local. “How long you put it in the nanites, goop for?”

“Five minutes if you have a little, three if you have a lot,” Ken said.

“Thanks,” Luke flipped back. “Put it in there for five minutes, then put parts in with it. The Orkaran use it to replicate their weapons and ammunition. Could have a few vats of nanites making parts and others making ammunition.”

“We’ll test it out.”

“Thanks.”

Dropship engines powered down, many staring as it touched down on the landing pad. The hatches opened, bots dropping out and checking on the craft.

“We’re going to head out in a few minutes. Ken if you can organize some movers and people to liaise with your people, don’t want to scare them, or make them think we’re Aer.”

“Hard not to when you use Aer symbiotes and ships,” Gra waved at the regular bots working on wounded before they were loaded up on movers, and the dropship.

“Those are mostly sphere world gear, though we’ve been modifying them a bit.”

Gra spat to the side. “Sphere World, the Aer promised they would go and find its secrets. Used our money and resources. Then hoarded its wealth, turned us to farming and mining to feed their appetites and strip our world.”

Ears flicked up as others snarled, baring their teeth.

“Well you ever wanted to visit it?” Luke asked.

“Visit it?”

“Once we have an air corridor open we’re going to need to send you somewhere. The kind of weaponry we’ll be throwing around,” Luke pointed at the lines cutting through the sky.

“They strike with such force just one of them would wipe out this entire facility. The Sphere World has food and facilities for your people to recovery to gather your strength.”

“We will not flinch from fighting back these creatures as you do,” Orkaran tapped their feet in agreement.

“We are not actually inside of these,” Luke patted his heavy. “We’re controlling them from far away.”

“I have seen it, like symbiotes, they create a new version and it moves, coming to life before my eyes,” Ken said.

“And you want to send us to this Sphere World.”

“If a nuke hits us accidentally we create a new bot and start again. It hits you and there is no coming back. We’ll be heading out in ten minutes for the nearest villages, Ken?”

“I will be there with my fighters and movers.”

“Thank you.” Luke turned and left the group. Moose moving with him, Jynx and Fin were ahead, once they saw there was no threat.

“Think that replicating trick is going to work on our ammo?” Moose asked.

“Hope so. We’ve only got the five factories.”

***

The warehouse had been turned into a production line. Movers dumped their loads of broken gear, Engineer bots sorted through it, using repair tools to pull out parts and teaching Orkarans.

Scrap was dumped on salvaged belts into the factories or large plastic buckets.

Ammo was pulled out of the buckets and put on tables.

Bots trained Orkarans taking salvaged parts and those printed off of the factories using repair tools to assemble them into complete bots.

An Orkaran pulled an ammunition box off of the table as Luke approached, her tongue sticking out of her mouth as she kneed it up to her chest and wrestled it onto her shoulder.

Luke closed his mouth, pulling his rifle clear, clamping it to his front as she wiped the muck off of his reloading lever, she pulled it out and reefed down on it, opening his ammunition port. She pushed the container in and gave it a heavy shove.

His auto-loader went to work.

“Thank you,” Luke said.

“What an engi-ne-er does,” she struggled over the word and moved to Jynx, pushing open her port first before she grabbed a heavy ammo can.

The auto-loader stopped feeding and pushed the can back out, dropping it on the ground.

“What you do that for?” She complained.

“When the can’s empty the heavies system ejects it, that way a new can be slotted in place quickly and so we don’t have ammunition cans on our backs if we have to run into a fight,” Luke said. Activating his closing system, the handle moving up and then locking to his side out of the way.

“Oh, I guess that makes sense.”

“Don’t be standing behind one once you got it in, try and load and stand from the side,” Jynx said.

“Alright then,” The girl nodded. “Next up!”

Moose moved up and she opened his port.

Jynx’s case ejected, Luke grabbed it and his own, putting them on the table, opening their tops to be refilled.

He drank from his tube, something sweet, salty and citrusy. Chewing on it for a second as he lumbered through the warehouse.

In the buckets nanites swarmed over objects unseen, a small box-like object attached to each bucket.

“Course you lot were the ones to make it on the ground,” Minnie muttered as she walked over in a bot.

“What brings you down these parts?” Jynx laughed just behind Luke.

“Got told that there are a bunch of people trying to replicate stuff with nanites. We workshopped the idea, added in a nanite controller. Throw the materials you need into a bucket, nanites eat it up and spit out the blueprint programmed into the controller. Can make component level gear, so ammo, guns, armor and the like, anything bigger like a bot we have to put together with repair tools or throw it through a factory. Factory is faster of course.”

“So putting in a piece and then having it replicate didn’t work?” Luke asked.

“It did, but the controllers make it faster, can do up more than one at a time and we don’t lose a piece of gear to make it.”

“See if you can’t keep them near the shelters, in case they need to run back down. We’ll have them stay here. Hotel you got command rebuilding and defending here. Hey Uniform squad lead, you up to trade bots? Take the heavies and defend the inner compound, we take your regulars?” Luke asked.

“Sounds good to me command.”

“Stow that crap,” Luke growled.

“Well seems like you’re stuck with it now,” Tango’s squad leader chuckled.

“Bunch of comedians.” Luke grinned slightly, jumping to squad chat.

“We’re going to switch out with Uniform squad, they take the heavies, we take regular bots back at the repair shop. We’ll take some of those up-armored movers and head to the towns and cities fast as.”

They sent their own sounds of agreement back.