The bears had just finished restraining the st of the cil PMC forces outside the building, the interior forces had almost appreheheir targets, and Hel had just reported that she had secured the trol systems. The situation seemed to be under trol.

  Which of course meant that someone would show up and try to fuck things up.

  [Boss, we’ve got more armor ireet.] Bob reported.

  [The cil?]

  [No, I think it’s the other ones.]

  “Wonderful,” I grumbled, pulling up the squirrel cam. There was a massive n of armor making its the street, heading straight for the cil building. There were at least two dozen tanks and two superheavies. “This is going to be a thing, isn’t it?” I muttered before heading back towards one of the Kodiaks docked at the bay ship.

  [Bob, pnt yourself right in the middle of the road; don’t let them pass. Bandit, set up the Moose on the surrounding roads. I’d like to solve this peacefully, but given my history, that seems unlikely. Best to be prepared, just in case.]

  As I hopped onto the Kodiak with Deadbeat and Dusty at my back, I prayed the situation didn’t dissolve before I got there.

  Thankfully it didn’t, irely.

  By the time the Kodiak set down, the n had pletely halted. The forward tank had literally put its barrel against Bob’s head, and there was a man wearing an impressive military outfit yelling at the bear.

  Bob, for his part, was ughing.

  “Get out of the way this instant. You’re interfering with a wful flict!” the overimportant man screamed.

  “Who decided it was wful? You?” I growled.

  The man jumped. Apparently, he’d been so absorbed in yelling at my bear he’d totally missed the Kodiak nding only a couple feet away. Idiot.

  “The rules of e have beeablished by corporate charter. In the case where two or more corporations preasonable demands upon another, war may be decred. When all the trolling board members of one of the fas have been captured, that faust capitute and agree to whatever demands are preseo them,” the pompous asshole decred.

  “So, no o’s more corporate bullshit,” I sighed. “Who are you, and what the fuck do you want?”

  “My name is Theodore Andreus Miller, and I’m the Applied System Dynamics military advisood for you,” I grunted quietly.

  “I’m here to request that you turn over Brooke Lawrence, CEO of Alliance Bio-Tech, and Rowan Sanders, CEO of Tel Systems, to me. I’d also like to take trol of the Calgary cil building to use as a aer for the rest of this campaign,” Theodore decred.

  “No.”

  Apparently the man didn’t hear the word ‘no’ that often, because he rocked back, aghast. “Why not? I was uhe impression that the samurai weren’t ied iing involved in the flict.”

  “I didn’t get involved because I figured that the two of you would beat the shit out of each other for a while, one of you would surrender, and they would return tur business like your pissing match had never happened. What I didn’t expect was for you both to fight with nard for civilian safety and for the cil to attempt war crimes in order to win.”

  I turowards Theadore and gave him my best threatening smile. “I’m ly a fan of people who are willing to sacrifi people in order to win a fight.”

  “Quite, that’s a barbaric practice…”

  “Like your armored n tried to do a couple days ago in the uy.”

  Theodore paled. “Right.”“The cil crossed a lihey attempted to drop a pte down below and take a good portion of your forces with it. My friends and I stopped it. Not for you, but for the people that would have died,” I expined. “They’ll have to face the sequences of their as, and I’ll be ho, I don’t trust that ASD will do anything beyond throw them in a luxury suite, wait till you got what you wahen release them.”

  The man looked insulted, but holy I didn’t care that much; I just tinued my rant. “As for the request to surrehe cil building to you, I ’t do that. I’ve retly been informed that ASD did NOT decre on Calgary, but Helmar, Tel, Alliance Bio-Tech, and Great Northern themselves. You have no reason to occupy the cil building unless you have some sort of ulterior motive.”

  The idiot turned red. “How dare you?”

  “How dare I? Really? That’s the sed time I’ve heard that this week. The first time was from the jackass firing indiscrimihrough the uy. Maybe it’s a Dehing.” I snorted. “Listen up, Theadore, the samurai in town might not have wao get involved in this fug gong show of a flict before, but we do now. A lot of us don’t appreciate when someories to sughter i people. If you want to tihis fight, go ahead, but let me tell you… we’re going to have a really short fuse going forward, so if you or your forces do anything that threatens civilians, we will not hesitate to end you.”

  “End me?” he paled. “You’d attack half a dozen superheavies and dozens of armor ns?”I stared at the man for a couple seds, turned, and then stared at the super heavy still smoking at the end of the street, then back again. “I two days I’ve destroyed two superheavies and a couple of armored ns, without breaking a sweat and only using a couple dozen bears. I have almost a thousand bat bears. If you test me, I’ll use them all. Got it?”

  He flinched slightly before nodding. “Loud and clear.”“Thehe fuy street,” I yelled as I pivoted and started walking away. “I’m pnning on taking the other CEOs into custody over the day or so. If you want your surrender, you better try ao one of them before I do.”

  Even though I didn’t and him to do it, Bob reached up ahe front tank’s barrel nearly one hundred ay degrees before huffing at Theodore and following me.

  By the time I made it back to the cil building, Hel was just leaving. She gave the Denver armor a suspicious look before heading over to meet me. “Are we going to have an issue?”

  “Not uhey want to walk home,” I grumbled. Hel raised an eyebrow, so I crified. “I had a nice, polite chat with the head of the Denver forces, where I made it very clear that I’d castrate him and his forces if they did anything stupid.”

  “You think they’ll actually back off?”“I don’t know… I really hope so, it would make dealing with things easier, but I really have no faith in Corpos keeping their word. Or, you know, having on sense,” I sighed. “I think most of them sold it over the years.”

  “And you’re not worried that they’ll try ahe Denver samurai involved to keep you in line?”

  “Uggggghhhhh….” I immediately slumped forward and dropped my head into my hands. “That didn’t occur to me at all. Sihe Calgary samurai all decided to stay out of the flict, because it wasn’t ht, I assumed the Denver ti was the same. Fuck it. If they e up, I’ll deal with them.”

  Hel patted me on the back of the head. “How about I give the Denver branch of the Family a call, let them know what’s happening, a a read ouation before it snowballs out of trol?”

  “I would appreciate that, thank you,” I grumbled. “What’s the situation inside?”

  “Secure. I had to spend a little extra time pulling some booby traps ae explosives out of the room, but it’s all good now,” Hel expined. “I don’t know what the situation is with the cil members, though.”“I shoved them in a closet.”

  Hel raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t have any pns for what to do with them once I captured them! I don’t have any cells on the Marsupial, or back at the Shelter, so I have no idea what to do with them! Maybe I should call the others.”“Yeah, I’m sure they’ll get a kick out of that,” Hel smirked.

  “Shut up,” I muttered. “We did what we o and secured the trol system that everyone was worried about. That’s the important thing. Now that we have it, we move on to stage two.”“Sure. Right after we call the others and figure out what to do with your prisoners. Probably not a great idea to shove them all into closets,” Hel giggled.

  “Hey, if it works.”