My immediate surroundings were clear of any Macks except the overturned one, and I could see Wendy keeping an eye on the nearby area. I could therefore afford to pay more attention to the bigger picture. The Macks near the city center were mostly neutralized, and SHOCKS was sending Magical Girl teams to the suburbs where HANAF units were still under the heaviest pressure.

One team of flying MGs was rapidly moving northward. No doubt they would be taking care of the Thirty-Twos as priority targets, but I was loathe to lose my new toy so soon. So I got on the relevant channel and piped up “Vanguard Command speaking. There are two Thirty-Twos at the Blue Heron Basin, but the one that is still standing is ours!”

A young woman’s voice came back “This is Altari, team leader of Omega Lily. What do you mean by still standing?”

“We managed to subvert this one and use it against the other Thirty-Two that is now lying on its back!”

In my minimap, I could see that Omega Lily rapidly approached the place. Footage from the Spectracopter showed the enemy Thirty-Two on its back, helplessly waving its legs and the attached crawler drives around while spinning its tracks.

I added “Supporting HANAF at Horth Hill is probably more pressing. That overturned metal beetle is not going anywhere.”

“We will take it out anyway. You can keep the captured one as a souvenir.” Altari answered. Take it out, they did. They cut through the exposed belly of the giant Mack before two of them climbed in. I could see the light in its eyes fade one by one as they went to work.

The MGs took off again and proceeded towards the north. I heard Altari reporting on the command channel “Hostile Thirty-Two at Blue Heron Basin neutralized, proceeding to support HANAF at Horth Hill.”

She seemed to forget to shut off her microphone, because a minute later I could hear combat noises over the channel, followed by “Gotcha, bitch!... Uh sorry, I mean Type 42 eliminated.”

Things were looking up all over the city. With the most dangerous Mack concentrations eliminated, HANAF and the MGs could go on the offensive. Except for some units that were out of ammunition, like the one we had helped to repel the deluge of Macks.

Captain Miller instructed them to stay put until they had received new ammunition. He also asked Wendy and me to stay around just in case until his troops were resupplied. The soldiers, Wendy and I spent a few hours passing the time with small talk and exchanging war stories.

Finally I asked Elya “Say, what is my point status?”

You have one token and 15134 points now, including those you received from HANAF using your mortars. The fighting is not completely over yet, but I doubt many more points will come your way today.

It was time to plan looting the dead Macks, either for reuse or recycling. But I had no idea how to drive my Thirty-Two back to Vanguard Enterprises without flattening entire neighborhoods. So I asked Elya.

The route of minimum damage to the premises of Vanguard Enterprises would involve plowing through a bridge over the Patricia Bay Highway, crushing some infrastructure along Mills Road and doing significant damage to the roads themselves.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Just how heavy is this thing?”

1130 tons in its current state

Oops. I could see for myself that the Thirty-Two was huge. Even trying to keep the crawler legs close together, its track width would be over ten meters. But I had not considered the potential road damage due to its massive weight yet. We might have to give it up after all. Damn.

While I was still pondering my options, the supplies for the HANAF troops finally arrived. They started moving eastwards to clean out the last scattered Macks around the Blue Heron Basin.

Wendy and I packed up our stuff and returned to Vanguard Enterprises. But I stayed up for a few more hours, keeping a Spectracopter up and helping with reconnaissance.

Wednesday, November 18th 2048, Colwood Shelter

In the early morning, my phone rang with a call from Wendy. In a disgustingly chipper tone she said

“I thought about our raw material situation and figured we could use some of the scrap lying around out there. The guy from the recovery service we met last week said they could always use the business, so they might be willing to help us grab some.”

“I like the idea. In fact, I was thinking of modifying the Type 21 into a salvaging unit. If we can get some of those halfway intact, we might be able to kitbash something together without building it completely from scratch.”

“Not quite what I had in mind, but I’ll call him to hire his crew for scrap collection,” Wendy replied.

I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed. If we wanted to collect the Type 21s for my project, I needed to get my ass in gear before other vultures, ahem salvagers, got to the wrecks. After a hasty breakfast, I jumped into my van and got moving.

Some roads were closed for clearing up the mess from yesterday, but I still made good progress and soon arrived at the place of the recovery company. Fortunately, it turned out that they had experience with that sort of work and even had good relations with the police. With a bit of luck, we might be able to collect a few Twenty-Ones without being challenged.

I have recorded the locations of some Type 21 wrecks that might be worthwhile to plunder.

With the recovery crew in tow, we made our way to the first of those. As Elya had promised, most of it seemed reusable. A team of Magical Girls had cut up its foremost segment and destroyed the eye and a few of its arms, but the rest of the bus-sized metal caterpillar was intact.

The police officers regulating traffic around the wreck greeted the recovery crew like old buddies and even cleared a bit more of the street to make their work easier. With admirable skill, the workers loaded the thing on their flatbed trailer and we were on our way to Vanguard Enterprises, where we dumped the dead Mack in the driveway.

We managed to repeat this two times with other dead Twenty-Ones, before the remaining useful wrecks were overrun with scavengers. I told the boss of the recovery crew that we were done for now.

“Let’s call it a day here. You guys did great work, but by now most of the wrecks will be stripped of useful parts before we can get to them. We might call you again a few days from now though, there is some chance of looting a Thirty-Two.”

The man was skeptical. “How would you move one of those monsters at all?”

“Not the entire Mack, but we would need your trailer for some of the bigger parts. It depends on the city admin though.” Technically one needed permission to go around and collect Mack wreckage.

“I know. They look the other way right after an emergence, but once the city gets back to working normally, they clamp down on further Mack looting.”

Back at Vanguard Enterprises, Wendy transferred the money for the recovery crew right away and added a nice tip. We spent the rest of the day completing one of the large recyclers and hooking it up to the raw material storage system.

Finally we fed it a few hundred kilograms of Mack scrap, before starting a build job for a Mack type assembly/disassembly drone. It would be constructed overnight, as tomorrow we would need it to take apart two of the Twenty-Ones.