TBoB - Book 8 - Chapter 19 - Innovation (Patreon)

I’d lost track of the strange beaver-badger bot when it had disappeared back into the manufacturing area, dragging the wrecked bear-acade wall with it. It hadn’t been moving that quickly, and considering that it was the size it should have been easy to spot, but when I slid into the manufacturing area it seemed like the thing had completely disappeared. 

I scanned the area suspiciously; Everything seemed to be normal. The devastated wall panel had already been deposited into a Class II machine, where it was in the midst of being broken down and rebuilt autonomously. No bot. 

The rest of fabricators all appeared to be operating at peak efficiency, pumping out a variety of weapons, heavy munitions, bears and even vehicles. There was a squad of badgers with missiles strapped to their backs pulling out the final products so Heavy could inspect it before being either stowed away or immediately sent out to the hangar so they could be assigned to a squad. So far so normal.

Glancing over at the beavers I confirmed that most of them appeared to be occupied performing vehicle maintenance, or working on various projects at their workbenches. 

No sign of the strange hybrid. 

“Huh, maybe I just imagined it…” I muttered.

“Imagined what? The Badgver? No, it’s around here somewhere,” Dusty remarked as he walked up behind me. “It probably had to run off to it’s next task, the beavers keep it busy.”

I turned slowly and stared at the bear. “And how do you know that?”

He sighed. “The same way I keep track of all the troops, schedule my inspections, and keep in touch with everyone else. Through the command network,” Dusty said. “We really need someone to follow you around and smack you in the head whenever you fail to check your messages. I seriously don’t understand how your brain can run all the complex calculations to monitor and command this entire operation, yet you somehow regularly forget to check the updates that the squad sends you. I swear, you’re doing it on purpose.”“I’m not!” I snapped defensively. “Since there’s so much traffic going through the network, and it doesn’t need any conscious effort to maintain, I tend to tune it out when I’m not in combat. If I don’t I’ll get intense headaches, and be unable to focus on the task at hand. Now, I admit, that might be at least partially psycho somatic; I did almost fry my brain in the tunnels around Jasper, before updating both my brain and the implant.”

“I’m aware,” Dusty grumbled. “And we’re not asking you to stay conscious of all our conversations twenty-four-seven, just check you messages. I don’t understand why you just refuse to do that, you check your aug messages all the time.”

“That’s because there’s a constant reminder in the corner of my vision whenever I have a comm message,” I replied.

“And the command network is providing constant updates directly into your brain!” Dusty hissed, before lowering his head into his hands. “You know what, forget it. I guess that means you DIDN’T come over here at Heavy’s request.”“No… I came over because I saw something strange,” I said tilting my head to the side. “What did Heavy want?”

“He wanted to talk about the massive increase in unsafe experimentation,” Dusty replied. “Look, he’s just over there, why don’t you ask him?” 

“Fair enough. I don't quite understand why this would suddenly be an issue, but I’ll ask,” I said, before turning and weaving my way across the busy assembly area. 

I didn’t even make it half way across the room before Heavy noticed me and began jogging in my direction. I don’t think I’d ever seen him move so quickly, and with such purpose, when out of combat before. “Boss, you need to put some restrictions on what the beavers are allowed to ‘innovate’ with right now. They’re going to blow a hole in the side of the ship at this rate!”

“Okay, first of all you know that’s probably a bit of an exaggeration. It would take a direct hit from a powerful Class III weapon to even scratch the hull, and second of all… Weren’t the beavers already designing and implementing pretty much every update we’ve performed on both the carrier and shelter? Why is this a problem now?” I asked.

“Because you decided to let the beavers to work on their own projects,” Heavy grumbled. “And well, let’s just say that most of the projects they want to work on should stay theoretical.” 

“Wait… how do they even know about that? I made that decision while I was down in Great Falls, and I haven’t had a chance to let everyone know yet,” I said.

“Of course they know! The entire command network runs on your grey matter, so the instant you decide on something the entire network knows it!” Heavy exclaimed. 

“I didn’t realize that absolutely everything I thought was being sent out over the network, I thought I had to consciously send out messages and commands!” I exclaimed. “How long has this been happening?”“Since the beginning. Why else would our personalities be so heavily influenced by you? Sure, you were the one we followed the most, but even though we weren't fully sentient some of us realized that you weren’t exactly the best role model,” Heavy grunted.

“Now wait just a…” I paused mid objection. “You know what? There’s no point in denying it. I may be a good samurai, and a decent human being, but I’m definitely not the greatest role model. Too foul mouthed, and I tend to act before I think.”Heavy raised an eyebrow. “You know, I’m a little surprised you admitted that so easily. A year ago you would have denied it until you were blue in the face.”

“That was last year, and this is now,” I replied. “A lot has happened since then.” I shook my head. “Anyways, getting back to the subject at hand, why is giving the beavers free reign to design stuff a problem? I’ve seen their work, how bad can their designs be?” 

Heavy stared at me for a couple seconds before stepping to the side and gesturing to the pair of Badgers which had been assisting him. “Behold exhibit A, the impromptu jetpack experiment,” he said.

“Wait… Are you talking about the heavy missiles strapped to their back?” I asked, aghast. “I thought they were just transporting them to storage.” 

“Nope. Experimental design,” Heavy replied. “Thankfully I managed to intervene before the beaver managed to convince these two to actually test it.”

“Just to confirm… those are too big to be vehicle mounted missiles, which means…” 

“They’re the same long range ballistic missiles that are fired directly from Bear Force One,” Heavy confirmed. “I asked the beaver what possessed them to do such a thing, and they told me ‘the smaller ones don’t have enough thrust.’”

I groaned. “Don’t worry, I’ll talk to them and establish some ground rules,” I said. “ I planned to do that before making the announcement, but I guess I’ll have to figure something out something on the walk over there.” “Oh, we can help you with that. Heavy, Deadbeat, Bandit and I create a brief list of rules we’d recommend over the command network,” Dusty declared.

“And how many rules did you come up with exactly,” I asked.

“Well, we discussed a ton of different rules, and you can see all our logs on the network, but there was only one that we could all agree upon,” Dusty said.

“Which was…” I prompted.

“No warcrimes,” Heavy said. 

I glanced back and forth between the two bears. “That’s the only thing you could agree on?” I snorted. “Do you really think that’s necessary?" 

Heavy just turned and pointed at the badgers.

“Right…” I muttered. “Rule number one then. I’ll review your discussion on the way over and decide on a few others. I think we’ll have to be a little stricter than that.”“I’ll just be happy if you can keep them from blowing up the manufacturing area. Anything beyond that, is just a bonus,” Heavy replied.

“By the way… How long ago did the beavers throw that ‘jetpack’ together?” I asked “I haven’t been gone THAT long, yet it seems there was enough time to throw that monstrosity together and for you to shut them down.”

“Those things? Like five minutes after your decision came in. After I shut this down they created that badger-beaver hybrid, several hybrid shield systems, a gravity engine, a new poison delivery system…” Heavy started.

“What the heck is a gravity… You know what, it doesn’t matter. What matters is I should probably get over there before things get out of hand,” I said.

“Even MORE out of hand you mean,” Dusty corrected.

I shot him a dirty look, but didn’t tell him off; He was right after all. I took a long, deep breath in, before making the long walk over to the other side of the room. “If I’m not back in twenty minutes, call Bob back and send him in after me,” I said over my shoulder.

“Good luck!” Dusty shouted after me. “You’re going to need it.”