TBoB - Book 8 - Chapter 1 - Debriefing (Patreon)

IT'S HERE!Took me awhile to figure out where I wanted to go with this chapter, but I think it turned out pretty good. Hope you enjoy.“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for the memorial service?” Claire asked quietly as I started to push my chair back and stand. 

It had been about a week and a half since we managed to finally track down and kill the Gene Tender, and due to the extensive damage it had managed to cause to the fleet, numerous samurai casualties it had managed to inflict, and the various areas it had polluted with its organic signal-disrupting chaff, cleanup had been slow. However, with the combined strength of both the Seattle and Vancouver samurai fleets, we managed to sweep the area fairly thoroughly, and now, after so many days without encountering any significant or mutated Antithesis presence, the majority of the samurai involved in the operation had become convinced that the situation was now under control.

That’s why most of us had assembled here, in one of the conference rooms on the Destiny, to discuss how to wind down the operation and who wanted to stay in the area to perform cleanup.

My contribution to the discussion had been minimal; it had become apparent how bad my forces were at aquatic combat, and between my repeated losses and the need to collect the forces that I’d left in Great Falls, the others had agreed that I’d be one of the first to pull off the front lines.

Once we’d finished our discussion, I’d let most of the others leave before getting up myself; that’s when Claire had stopped me.

“Even though the nine samurai who either died or are still missing deserve my respect, I don’t feel comfortable attending a formal service back in the city,” I replied. “First of all, I only met one of them, Kingfisher, and that was mere minutes before he died, and second of all, if I do head into town, I’m a little concerned that it might incite some of the more excitable locals. You remember the last time I tried to stop by?”“Cannonade decided to target your ship, I remember,” Claire grumbled. “I’d really like to say that we managed to solve our problem with the different samurai factions in Seattle fighting with one another, but that’d be a lie. It’s still a major headache.”I stopped standing and sank back into my chair. “You’re not going to have any problems because of what happened here, right?” I asked. “I mean, a fair number of samurai died here. Isn’t that going to disrupt the balance of power or something?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Although we haven’t been able to come to an agreement on how to handle things, cooler heads have prevailed and everyone has agreed that no matter what happens dealing with the Antithesis takes priority over everything else. We had samurai from most of the major factions participating in this operation over the last few weeks, and although some of them have taken higher casualties than the others, it’s not enough to change the balance of power.”

“Pity,” I muttered. “It sounds like upsetting the balance of power would have been helpful.”“Not if some extremist faction managed to take power,” Claire hissed. “You do realize that some of them are demanding that Seattle, and the principality of Cascadia as a whole, implement widespread restrictions on biotech, right? We just got Seattle back on its feet again, and something like that would cause widespread disruptions to both the city’s food supply and infrastructure. It would be disasterous.” 

“That’s only the worst case scenario,” I replied. “That could have been the faction that lost out.”Claire sighed. “I prefer to handle things in a peaceful, diplomatic way, rather than hoping a faction that doesn’t share the same point of view will just collapse due to lack of support, or casualties,” she said. “It’s a ghastly way to handlie things.”“Hey, it worked for me,” I said. “Although, I guess the situation WAS a little different. At least your political opponents aren’t threatening to drop several city blocks down into the undercity, killing hundreds of thousands of people, in order to gain the upper hand.”

“Ugh… Even now the idea of that turns my stomach,” Claire moaned. “I can’t believe it was your own city leaders that were planning to do that too.”“Hey you two, what are you talking about? Anything juicy?” Hel asked as she sauntered over with Alise and Warspite in tow.

“Politics,” I replied as I spun in my seat so I could see them all.

“Ahhh, that would definitely explain why Celestia here looks a little green under the gills,” Warspite declared. “No matter how powerful or experienced you are, dealing with Cascadian politics can be exhasting.” When he held out a hand towards me I popped out of my chair to take it. “Although we’ve talked several times remotely, I believe this is the first time we’ve met in person. Jacob Windsor, also known as Warspite.”“Evelyn ‘Teddy’ Claire, nice to finally meet you,” I said. “I feel a little bad that it’s taken so long; our ships have been sitting just a couple kilometers from each other for over a week now.”

“Obligation comes before socialization,” he replied. “A few days ago you wouldn’t have been able to drag me from the bridge of my ship for anything. Not when there was a possibility that there may have still been active Antithesis hives in the area.”

“How is your ship doing anyway?” I asked. “The last time I saw it the Antithesis had clogged up its weapons with some sort of bio goo, and they were swarming into the ships interior.” 

“Yes, a truely unfortunate incident. Although my weapons have been hardened against most external threats, I never expected that they’d have to withstand the power of my own ordinance. It was fine though, even without it’s primary batteries the Retribution is quite a formidable ship. The interior corridors are nearly as tough as the outer hull, and there are all sorts of internal security measures to deal with boarders,” he explained. “That being said, I do appreciate you sending some of your troops down to cover my crew while they cleared the clogs.”“It was no problem,” I replied. “I sure as fuck wasn’t going to send them into the ocean. I learned my lesson. The only bots that were worth anything underwater were Heavy, and the otters, and the fucking otters ended up so lost that by the time they showed up on the front line the fight was already over. I’m not going to be committing my forces to aquatic combat in the future unless it’s absolutely necessary. They’ll be landbound from now on.”

“Evelyn here was just telling me that she’s not planning on sticking around for the memorial service,” Claire declared, interrupting our side conversation. 

“Oh? Why not?” Alise asked. 

“While I respect the fallen, I really didn’t know any of them,” I replied. “Besides the unstable situation inside the city? Well, I’ve been away from home for several weeks now, I haven’t talked to my family that much, and I’m eager to get home, and I still need to swing by Great Falls to pick up the forces I left there to help with the cleanup. I’ll consider coming back in my personal vehicle if it takes some time to set up, but I don’t want to be sitting around in the Stratocarrier until it’s prepared.”“You haven’t been calling the kids every night?” Alise asked in surprise.

“I haven’t even been sleeping most nights,” I muttered. “With all my bionics I’m able to stay up multiple days fighting, something I did frequently in Great Falls. When I arrived on the coast I was so focused on the task at hand, that calling home kind of slipped my mind…” 

“Jane’s going to give you an earful for that,” Alise chuckled. 

“She already has, which is why I’m so eager to leave,” I admitted.

“You should pick up some gifts on the way back,” Claire said. “Although it won’t make up for your absence, it’ll show you care.”

“I’m one step ahead of you,” I said. “I thought up some things the kids would love over the last few days, things you couldn’t buy, and have some of the spare bots picking them up. I still need to figure out what to get Jane… but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”“If you can’t, give me a call, I can give you some ideas I’m sure she’d love,” Alise volunteered.

“I appreciate that,” I said, nodding in her direction. “Anyways, I’d love to stay and talk some more, but I came with Sharron, and she’s probably waiting for me at the landing pad.”

“Couldn’t you just call another vehicle? Don’t you have dozens?” Hel asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I could, but the Ursas are still doing sweeps and since the Kodiaks were just sitting around I assigned them to help with logistics around the fleets. Since I’m leaving soon, they’re currently providing a backlog to everyone,” I paused for a moment. “You know… you’d be surprised at how much food samurai run ships use on a regular basis.”“No we wouldn’t; we already know,” Claire snorted. “Even with extensive automation ships the size of the Destiny and the Retribution have hundreds of crew on them. Although we could use points to feed them all through catalogues, it would require an extremely large number of points. It’s more economical to just stock the kitchens and hire proper chefs.”

“I’m sure not everyone thought we’d be out here as long as we were,” Alise said. “And even though Claire and I told everyone we’d host them, not everyone wanted to stay or visit the Destiny multiple times a day. You’re doing a good thing running supplies out to everyone.”“I’m just doing what I can,” I replied. “Anyways, I have a few things to take care of around here, so I’ll be here for another couple hours. I’ll give you all a call before I leave. You take care of yourselves.”

“You too Evelyn,” Hel replied. “We’ll talk to you soon!”

I nodded to my friends before turning towards the door, mentally going through all the things I needed to prepare. I had a lot to do, and I wanted to get it done as quickly as possible. 

It was time to go home.