“This beauty is an AH-1Z Viper, although we usually call it a Zulu Cobra. It’s the smaller and faster cousin of the Apache. It’s got almost as much firepower on a lighter frame, perfect for reconnaissance and escort missions. But don’t worry, it can really pack a punch when needed. You’ve got a 20 mil rotary cannon under the nose and the boys packed the wings to the gills. We’ve got four JAGM missiles, two Sidewinders, and ten Hydra rockets. It’ll get the job done,” the military escort said as he led them up to the helicopter.

  “Impressive.” Luke said as he walked around the helicopter.

  Despite being smaller than the other helicopters he knew of, it was still sixty feet long. It had two seats, one behind the other in a straight line. With two engines and four blade rotors, it could clearly go fast. Its nose had a bulbous protrusion, probably housing a sensor package.

  “What’s the difference between JAGM and Sidewinders?”

  “About 200K difference.” The escort smiled, “Sidewinders are for air to air and cost about half a million each, and JAGM are air to ground and cost about 300K. The former can turn faster, and the latter packs a bigger boom.”

  “Nice. Let’s hop in. Assuming that guy knows not to shoot me. He’s giving me the stink eye,” Luke said and pointed to a soldier standing near the Viper with a hand on his rifle. He was staring at Luke like he expected him to try and steal the multi-million dollar military asset.

  “Stand down, Private Simmons. This is our VIP. We’ll be in and out quick.” the escort said and opened the door to the copter. He lowered his voice and said, “And please let me reiterate, you can’t start it up or fire any weapons. You are locked out of the system but please don’t get around that with magic bullshit.”

  Luke rolled his eyes. They weren’t this uptight when he sat in the tank. It was just as dangerous as this one was. Maybe. Now that he thought about it, the Viper could do more damage upfront even if the Booker might carry more ammo.

  He climbed the small ladder as Private Simmons followed his every move. Luke tried to ignore him and settled into the front pilot seat. The padding made it surprisingly comfortable. He closed his eyes and mentally clicked Summon Vehicle. The skill spread out from his spot, seeping into the helicopter from nose to tail. With a final push of mana, it clicked into place, loading up the vehicle template. He climbed out of the cockpit with a grin on his face.

  Now he could create a mana copy of a M10 Booker tank, an explosive Switchblade drone, and a AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter. He couldn’t wait to put them to use killing monsters on Kalibutan.

  But first, he was going to mess with the twitchy guard a little bit. He waited until his escort was looking away and activated Summon Vehicle. Mana rushed out of him streaming towards an empty spot in the hangar and arranging itself. A second Viper helicopter formed out of mana, gray with violet highlights. The summoned heli was facing the guard, and clicked into place a foot away from his face.

  Just as Luke hoped, the guard jerked back in surprise and grabbed his rifle. Luke pushed on his Acuity so he could time this just right. He watched the guard slowly raise his rifle and pull the trigger. He dispelled the Viper in the same instant so the bullet passed through a quickly disappearing cloud of mana.

  The gunshot echoed through the metal hangar and threw everyone into action. The mechanics dropped to the floor and the second guard at the back of the hangar dashed over, his weapon raised.

  “Dude! What the hell are you shooting at?” Luke yelled.

  The guard lowered his weapon and said, “There was this pink thing. It was right there. You must have used your alien voodoo.”

  Luke ignored the accusation and turned to the others, “Did you guys see anything or is this guy hallucinating?”

  His escort looked around and said, “I didn’t see anything, but Private Simmons isn’t crazy.”

  Luke shook his head, “Seems like he is to me. Get me out of here before he starts shooting at shadows again.”

  It didn't take much convincing for Luke to get escorted off base. The MPs were questioning Private Simmons as he left. He knew that they would eventually come to the logical conclusion that Luke was just messing with them, but it would take time and lots of paperwork.

  The stunt might teach the twitchy guard to be a little more careful, but Luke realized he should have let it go. People telling him what to do always set him off. He needed to work on that. Hopefully by getting so powerful no one told him what to do.

  ???

  Luke slapped the top of the tarp covering the bed of the hover truck. Ropes and bungee cords held it down well. “That’s not going anywhere.”

  He was fully packed now, ready for the trip starting soon. The majority of the truckbed was taken up by his Mark VI mech, one that he was calling Black Mamba in his head. No way he would be caught calling the stealth power armor that cringy name out loud though. A third of the truck bed was for food and trading supplies. Kruro slithered behind him, stacking the last of her own supplies in the trailer. The fake elf would be meeting them in a half hour so she could add her own supplies to the trailer as well.

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  While he waited, he did a quick walkthrough of the company warehouse. Everything was put away and cleaned up. Five of the mech suits were in use on Kalibutan right now, killing monsters. The spares were all operational and hung up on racks. His pet project was tucked away and his workbench cleared off. It really was too bad he hadn’t gotten that to work yet.

  Instead of a new mech, he had been working on a combat robot. It was a wildly ambitious project, and hadn’t panned out yet. He might not ever get it working. There were far too many pitfalls that smarter men than him hadn’t been able to overcome. He still wanted to try though.

  The base chassis was an evolution of the mech suit, but with internal controls instead of a human. After a few dozen days of intermittent work on the project, he had something that was capable of moving on its own. Sort of. It could perform pre-programmed movements, but he couldn’t get the governing computer to be able to see and interpret the world around them and then move accordingly. There was something about the magic and computer interface that he was still missing.

  He was certain that if he could get it working at least a little bit, he might be able to put Machine Soul in it. That would solve all the AI problems, and it might allow it to use the agility runes. That would be the game changer there, tipping the idea of an effective combat robot from science fiction into science fact. He had reached out to a few people online and asked for help. One of these days they would come up with a suggestion that would work. Until then, his pet project would be gathering dust.

  Twenty minutes later, the SPEAR spy arrived. He had to admit, she looked the part. She was tall and thin with long ears and a facial structure that nudged the uncanny valley. Her long black hair was braided and thrown over her shoulder. She wore jedi-like robes with detailed embroidered patterns. She walked forward gracefully, even though she was weighed down by two large canvas bags.

  She knelt at his feet and put her fists on the ground in the Kalibutan fashion and said in elvish, “Luke of Machines. This lowly one greets you. My name is Dieya Bosa. I am a handmaid of the former house Falodun. Their house is broken now and I need employment. I ask for the honor of working for your glory.”

  “Get up,” Luke said in English. “Your disguise looks good and your Elvish sounds flawless. Good job. I guess you won’t be a danger to me so you can come along. Just promise you’ll work with me and won’t get us in trouble.”

  The spy calling herself Bosa dipped her head and said in Elvish, “I don’t know what you mean by disguise, but I swear on my glory that I will bring no trouble to your house. You may ask Seneschal Cormac for a reference. He knows my aunt and uncle well and can vouch for me.”

  Luke rolled his eyes and said, “Method actor, eh? Sure, I’ll play along. Less chance of slipping up when we are on the road. Let me introduce you to our naga companion.” He walked over and said, “This is Unu Kruro, she is my friend and will be accompanying us to the capital. Kruro, this is Dieya Bosa. Once we get to the capital, you’ll both act as my entourage. We’ll collect my share of the loot and then you’ll both have a chance to tend to your own business for a few days. I’m invited to attend the Great Shuffle while we’re there, so we’ll stay for that and then head home. Do you have any questions?”

  Bosa slashed her hands down in the Kalibutan sign for no, but didn’t say anything.

  Kruro slithered closer and said in Elvish, “I have a few questions. My creche was raised in the capital, west pedal. You look like a family I knew there. The Dieya house was a landed elvish house next to the dwarven skyrise of Ponama. Are you related to them by any chance?”

  Bosa slashed her hands down. “No, my family is from Colm. It’s a small town northwest of the capital. I’m not related to the Dieya Carpentry house. I almost wish I was. I’ve always wanted to explore ‘The Summer Wind Falling on a Spear of Blood and Might’. I want to see if it’s like the stories.”

  Kruro slithered back a bit and wiggled her hands in assent. “It is a beautiful city, worthy of many stories. Only some of them are exaggerated."

  Luke was mildly impressed that the spy had such detailed knowledge of the capital. He said, “I have a question for you too. What’s your class? And tell me the truth, I need to know the details in case the caravan gets attacked by high level monsters.”

  “I would never presume to tell you anything but the full truth, Luke of Machines. When asked by others I tell them I have a Thread Weaver class. That makes it sound like I have a weak silver class. My real class is Needle Surge, a gold class that allows me to control all needles with telekinesis. One of my class skills lets the needles go invisible, so I can thread them and swing them around so it looks like I have the Thread Weaver class.”

  Luke nodded. “Sounds good. Why bother with the subterfuge about the class though? They both sound like utility classes that could be very useful in fights.”

  “Thread Weaver is a weak class and will cause people to underestimate me. The class only works with fiber thread. It’s not a danger to anyone high leveled. One of the things that makes Needle Surge a gold class is that it works on any type of needle. Even nigh indestructible artifact needles that can pierce almost anything,” Bosa said. Her sentence was punctuated by the sound of something small whooshing by.

  “Alright. Glad to have you aboard. I’ll do my best to keep your real class a secret. I imagine you’ll want to know about our classes too, right?”

  She bowed slightly. “If you would deign to part with that information, I believe it would be useful.”

  “Kruro has a runewright class, and although she prefers not to fight, I have no doubt she has various runed weapons on her at all times. My class is about machines and I work best when I am piloting the big mech under that tarp. It’s pretty cool, made it myself. I’ll show you it later. I can also summon armed vehicles I have piloted before. For example,” Luke said and pointed, “Shazam!”

  Luke forced his Summon Vehicle skill to slowly manifest. The swirling gray and violet mana took twice as long to solidify into a war machine. A Viper helicopter appeared on the pavement thirty feet away. He chose to sandbag his abilities because he didn’t quite trust her yet.

  “Most impressive, Luke of Machines.”

  “Yeah, I’d like to think so. Although I hear there’s a lot of high level people and monsters out there. I’ll probably take the chance to fight monsters and level up as much as I can during this trip.”

  “Well then, I will endeavor to assist you in any way I can, starting with loading my supplies.”

  The lanky elf slipped by him and hurried over to the hover trailer. She packed away her two bags and slipped something into her robes. Probably one of her spy tools. Luke wondered if she had anything cool like James Bond. Normally he would have thought the idea ridiculous, but magic was real, so why not cool spy gadgets too? He realized he should have pushed Agent Brown for more spy tools. Maybe when they got back.

  Author Note: The chapter title is a quote from The Secret Life of Pets (2016)

  Happy Thanksgiving to those that celebrate tomorrow. I'm the chef in my family, so we'll see if I get writing time so I can post on Friday. Time will tell.

  Bosa won’t be a romantic interest, but I saw some comments guessing she would be a replacement for Vanessa. I was thinking about adding a paragraph about how he didn’t find her attractive, but I wasn’t sure if that would feel weird and forced. What would you suggest?