No, PolyGulp, I have not had sex in the mech. It is tailor made to have just me driving it.
-Vanguard Red Menace answered her chat between games of LoL.
The table lit up with a map of New Phoenix and its surrounding area, then the camera shifted to the south.
“What the fuck is that!” I exclaimed.
A massive network of tunnels was displayed, extending for miles around the south half of the city. They stopped two miles from the walls, but extended out into the horizon for ten, and deep into the Earth by four.
“Outsider decided it would be for the best if she could map out the tunnels we discovered the other day, and for the last thirty seven hours and fifty three minutes she has been doing just that. Last night, one of the collection vehicles arrived with a data packet that contained this map data and a message.”
A small screen popped up in front of me, projecting Rogal's head. “General, forgive us for not reporting in sooner, but we have not had the leeway to do so until now. Leman and I have been holding our own against a constant stream of antithesis five miles south of the city, but we have been unable to extricate ourselves due to a number of Model Twelves, Fourteens, and a Seventeen, as well as swarms of Ones. We are pinned down and unable to extricate Outsider from the hive network. She has located six chambers below, each capable of producing Twenties.”
“The hive we provided seems to be a fortification of sorts, similar to a Forward Operating Base for the network below. It is not connected to the tunnels physically and is acting as if we have discovered the extent of things. The more problematic issue Leman pointed out was that we have not received any support from the city's defences, neither the antithesis mortars nor The Family. For the former, it may be due to an incompetent Commander, yet there should not be any reason for the latter since Samurai Gunny is in space observing Arizona. We predict a camouflage type Model in the stratosphere is preventing satellite imaging from picking up the battle.”
“I am officially requesting for reinforcements as soon as the forces have been made. Once we wipe out the hive here, we will be able to retrieve Outsider and come up with a plan of attack. Rogal out.”
The screen faded and I turned to Morrigan. “Why the fuck didn't you report this to me the moment you got this last night?” my voice was flat, barely constraining the emotional turmoil within me.
“Because we didn't have the forces to do anything about it. I have directed sixty percent of the retrieved materials into making swarms and a Shuttle. As of ten minutes ago, we have enough swarms to actually act as reinforcements. But if any higher Model Twenties appear, only the Shuttle has enough firepower to do something to them, yet it will be needed to deal with the Stratosphere antithesis.”
I took a deep breath. Sands I was bad at managing my emotions.
You are eighteen, Victor. In a normal world, the most complex thing you should have dealt with is a love triangle, not leading a war. It's why you have made capable subordinates.
She's right.
I know.
I release my breath.
“Load everything in the Shuttle. Once we get there, hot drop all swarms into Rogal's and Leman's command. I will be flying it, and I will take out the stratospheric antithesis myself.”
Morrigan nodded as I turned to leave. “Express elevator to the right of the main door. Takes you straight to the garage.”
A new elevator door opens, big enough for a decent sized squad of Max Tac goons. I nod and move into the elevator as Morrigan pings me in the network.
Accelerating my perception as the doors slow to a crawl to close, I shift my focus to her.
“A few things before we deploy. Once you are within fifty feet of Rogal and Leman, you will receive a massive influx of points from them.”
It is a feature of more army focused Vanguard, for those who can dispatch their troops a long distance away. It would not be fair for a Vanguard to invest in massive amounts of gear with the intent of it being not near them, and only receive a pittance from the investment. However, in order to collect those points and tokens, you would need to visit the troops in person, either by going to them, or by having them be recalled to you. It is not a very well known feature, as the amount of Samurai who go down this path are annoyingly few.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
By the way, expect an amount of forty six thousand points and three tokens. This is, of course, a third of the amount of points you would have recieved had you been fighting with them the entire time.
“That would be correct. We need long ranged options for swarms, and there is a type of swarm I have actually not been able to replicate, much to my vexation. It is listed as Plasma Swarms, and the description only lists it as a ‘long ranged plasma based unit’. It is not helpful.” She glares into the network.
If you want to derive blueprints for free, there are limits to how much of a hint I can give.
I could see she wanted to say something, but moved on. “Two, no. Three AI seeds. I plan on finishing the roster with this assault. And the Class II War Swarm Utilities, with the Command Pylon blueprint. I will install it in shuttle once i have it.”
“An adjutant for you, so you can have an actual strategy type and I can go back to making things. A heavy type based on the plasma, assault, and defence swarms. It will be a pair with Leman, front line combat, just with more ranged options. Finally, a long ranged type based on plasma and scouts, as either a single target eliminator or area of effect denial.”
I knew I was being curt, and that I had so much time to be not, but I couldn't help it. I was still a bit angry at her withholding this information from me, even if I recognized that I wouldn't have been able to do anything until now.
“Yes. I designed it with a Neural download jack, and a Neural connection controller. It will feel strange, but you adjust quickly.”
I let my perception return to normal, and as the elevator closed, I expected to feel something, instead, a second later, the doors reopened. Fast. Perfect.
Striding out into the garage, I saw it. Thick, blocky, blue, and heavily armed. Two stubby wings stick out from the sides with massive V-TOL engines on their ends. The main body is a brick with six thick landing feet, and the front was angled like a stubby knife, but just as thick as the rest of the body. The top had four point defence guns for anti-air, heavy rotary cannons, yet they had nothing on the gun below the cockpit. A single rotary cannon, yet each barrel was thick enough for me to stick my arm down it and wiggle it around. Next to the cockpit and the loading ramp on the back were two missile pods with ten missiles each.
Walking up the back ramp, I saw the spatial expansion at work. I walked up onto a catwalk that led to the cockpit, looking down at the five hundred plus dice stacking themselves into neat rows. Just behind the cockpit was a nice seating space that could hold ten people strapped into bucket seats. The cockpit was a cramped affair, with a single bulky seat and numerous dials and switches and lights spread around the entire space, with two small screens for viewing.
Trusting that these made sense, I sat in the chair that then proceeded to hug me and strap me in, leaving my arms free. I grabbed the jack wire next to my head and plugged it into my augs.
My awareness of my body shifted as knowledge flowed through me. The first thing I learned was that all those buttons and things did literally nothing. They were just there for decoration, fidgeting, and theater. I opened my eyes and saw not the cockpit, but the garage in a three sixty view. I saw the last of the dice load themselves, the garage shutter opening, shifting downwards. I could feel the air circulating through the area. I stretched my feet and arms, and my flaps and engines shifted.
Morrigan giggled, and I shifted my attention to the interior cameras. She was standing by the loading ramp looking outward, and Baba Yaga was next to her. I flexed, and the ramp closed. I breathed and my engines started, lifting me off the ground. I retracted my feet and turned towards the opening of the garage. Opening the map of the area, I charted a course to Rogal's last position, seeing a yellow line expand from me outside. I moved forward, gaining speed as I approached the entrance, then, once I was clear of the building, I launched straight up at max speed.
That was both the most thrilling feeling I had ever experienced and a small mistake. I accelerated from ten miles per hour to Mach 3 in two seconds. I saw the shockwave ripple the air and vibrate the buildings nearby. Thankfully, since this was still near where the Incursion happened recently, there was no other traffic. I felt a small strain as I accelerated that fast, but it subsided once I reached top speed. Then, there was the small mistake. As I turned and leveled with the earth below, I realized that I was miles above the city. I slowed down considerably, to a cruising speed of a more manageable fifty miles per hour.
Stabilizing myself, I looked at the area Rogal was fighting in, and felt confused. I saw a shimmer of something forming a dome that covered the area. It looked like a heat mirage, and flipping through my sensors, I saw nothing unusual, which was problematic. I aimed down towards the dome and flexed a new muscle. My guns all activated targeting reticulated through my eyes, seeing my ammo count for each gun, and reading the information for my missiles.
“Oh, yeah! Those! They act like a localized Dwarf star collapsing, drawing in a huge amount of mass before detonating. The targeting data should let you know of the blast radius. They're my very first Class II experiment! And you get to do their first live fire test.”
My confidence was a mess, but I decided not to think on it. I accelerated forward, straight towards the dome. There were a number of calls and systems targeting me from the city, but I ignored them as I fired two missiles into the dome, seeking to open a path and alert the city.
The missiles hit the dome almost instantly. I accelerated my perception to watch the effects. The first thing that happens is nothing, as they glide through the dome. Then, two dents form as the shimmering material is pulled inward, revealing a mass of Model Ones and some Model Elevens. The area of effect is a thirty foot radius as everything gets compressed into a ball of black and green in the span of microseconds. I could see areas within the sphere ignite spontaneously, then the entire ball was ablaze.
As quickly as it compressed, it exploded outward in a fireball, engulfing an area of fifty feet in utter destruction. The air that was pushed away blew a massive amount of the shimmering material, which as I approached I could see were glittering half inch scales, revealing the mass of flying antithesis within. The dome of antithesis was five hundred feet in diameter, but now that the dome was compromised, they adjusted to intercept me.