“The first lesson you need to get through that thick skull of yours, is that being a Samurai means more than just killing xenos. It’s damn fucking important, sure, but you can help in other ways. Don’t forget that. We have folk running around doing nothing but logistical organisation, people who focus on medical equipment, some even focus on teaching others.

“Yes, you want some xeno killing gear, and damn, you should learn how to use it. But that can be a secondary concern. As long as you don’t forget that being a Samurai means helping others, no matter in what capacity, don’t fret too much about how many aliens you slaughter, how many points you make, or how many folk you can pull out the dumpster first hand. Do you understand?”

- Samurai ‘Wilco’ during a Family organised training session, 2037

The next morning was a pleasant one. It’s been quite a while since we went to bed early and got a full night’s sleep, waking up before any alarm. The Dream Learning had been a bit of a weird experience, although it wasn’t unpleasant. It was a bit strange having all the muscle memory after just one night full of weird dreams, but it was effective, and that was all that mattered to Us.

Dismissing those thoughts, we turned over to Chloe, spending some precious time just cuddling with her before we got up. We had the time and nothing beat spending some quality time with our girlfriend in the morning. A sentiment she shared whole-heartedly.

While we lay in bed together, we decided to check in with everyone else. The night had gone by relatively quietly, with little that needed the attention of Glubber and Bahamut. Those two obviously hadn’t slept, although we were certain they had enough body mods to stay awake for a while.

Tiny had done a little bit during the night, not only with catching up on the memorial entries, but also by clearing out one more big group of even bigger aliens, something that made Us worry about what we would find once we got deeper into the Hive.

Even with Bahamut’s pruning of the aliens, they did seem inclined to produce some heavy hitters, which could become a problem later.

Eventually we decided to get up, and after a hearty breakfast prepared by Joenna and Keity, we all boarded our personal shuttle and made our way back down to our meeting spot. Bobby was already waiting, sitting in his Jeep and munching on a sandwich.

“Howdy,” he said with a casual wave when we stepped out of the shuttle.

“Good morning. Sleep okay?”

He gave Us a nod. “As good as I could. Really missing my tent. Oh well.”

“Ready for the day?” Chloe asked, already checking over her weapons.

“In a moment. You checked in with the Family yet?”

“We went over the reports from last night. Nothing too bad from the looks of things, although Tiny found some nasty xenos deeper down.”

He grimaced, “Yeah. That will be a problem.”

“Should I switch over to more Sentinel production?” Jenna asked, looking a bit concerned.

“Might be an idea. Not sure how well your bots can deal with the bigger aliens, though,” Bobby replied thoughtfully, finishing off his breakfast.

“I don’t have anything that can deal with the larger models yet. Might be a worthwhile investment. I’ll check in with Cleopatra, see what I have available.”

“Do that. Any of you lasses need some time to prepare? You should have the points, right?”

“Oh, we have more points than we know what to do with,” we mused.

Over night we had gotten even more points, especially after Tiny’s little outing. At this point we were sitting at just over 100k, which was a ridiculous number. That said, we really didn’t know what we should get, since we didn’t really want to get too many Hexclaws. While the deactivation of the limiter was unavoidable, we also didn’t think it was worth the trade off just yet.

At the same time, we didn’t really need any more gear, we’d just gotten some good upgrades the day prior, so outside of any additional gadgets, there really wasn’t much we could go for. And we were still missing the tokens we needed to upgrade our Hexclaw Swarm Intelligence Catalogue, even if we obtained two more before we went to sleep yesterday.

“If you have more points than you know what to do with, that just means that you haven’t thought about it enough. There never is a point where you have too many points, just not enough ideas what to do with them. For example, what is stopping you from getting more drones? By this point you should be able to get thousands of them, right?”

We shook our head, “Theoretically, yes. But there are some limitations that are placed on Hive-Minds, especially our type of Hive-Mind, by the protectors. They want to make sure that there isn’t going to be another antithesis level threat, and after seeing what a true Hexclaw Hive can do, we can understand the reason for it. Trust Us when we tell you, you do not want a proper Hexclaw Hive-Queen running around. That thing can deal with models in the fifties without even trying. It’s larger than a skyscraper and faster than anything that size should ever be able to move. Really, it was a sight to behold.”

He raised his eyebrows at that, obviously intrigued. “Oh? Where did you see that?”

“Kaysa put together a mesh dive for Us, based on the Devourer of Worlds. That is the actual name of the Hive, by the way. It’s the largest Hive-Mind ever encountered by the protectors, and it is a Hexclaw Hive. We are talking trillions upon trillions upon trillions of voices, or drones if you will. A fraction of that would be enough to reduce Earth to nothing more than a dust cloud floating in space. Anyway, because of that there are some limitations. Technically we could get that many drones, but we also have a limiter in place that prevents Us from feeling the full brunt of a drones death. If our Hive grows too large, that limiter gets deactivated.”

He nodded. “I see. And I bet you don’t want that yet, which would make sense. Dying is not a fun experience, and not something any living being should experience.”

“Exactly. Other than that, we already got better gear yesterday, way better. We really don’t know what else we could get.”

Finally he got up, grabbing his backpack. “Alright, that makes sense. But back to my point. It sounds like you are too entrenched in your thinking. You’re a Samurai, think like one. If you can’t get more drones, and you don’t need more gear, then what else can you get? Just because you only have some catalogues now, doesn’t mean you can’t get more. Maybe start thinking outside the box a little. Having a theme is great, just don’t make the mistake of thinking that’s all you’re allowed to get. Branch out a little, try different things. You have more points to know what to do with? Do something else with them.”

We thought about that. It made sense, and was bloody obvious, really. For some reason we never really considered getting anything that wasn’t on theme, he was right about that. That said, we also didn’t really know what else we could get either.

“Your AI is helpful. They’re great,” he continued, putting on his gear, “But they also only give you recommendations based on what is immediately required and what you ask them about. It’s on you to think further and to plan out what you can use. Let’s take Legion, as an example. She does bots, she does defences, but she’s awful in CQC, right? Well, what can be done about that? Sure, she can get some training to become better in CQC, get better bots, better defences, better armor. But she could also get something else entirely. A catalogue that circumvents the issue. If she still wants to stay at the front line, she can get a huge mech to walk around in, something that can tank hits and spew gunfire in all directions. Or she can decide to stay away from the front, and do something else. Branch out, get logistical catalogues, medical catalogues, stay behind the front lines and help in other ways. You don’t need to fight xenos to do your job as a Samurai.”

He gave her a nod, “I’m not saying what you’re doing is wrong, I’m just saying that it feels like you are kind of wasting a lot of potential. How many aliens did you, personally, kill yesterday while staying at your Fortress?”

Jenna thought about it for a moment. “Two to three hundred, tops. Most of the aliens were killed by my Sentinels, the Enforcer, and the defensive turrets.”

“See? Now imagine all that time spent back at base, organising everything, helping with the logistics, more shuttles, more transportation, more supplies, more medical equipment. Would it have made a huge difference? Probably not, but it’s something you need to keep in mind for the future. If you don’t want to fight aliens yourself, then that’s fine, let your bots do their job and do something else. But your AI won’t tell you that. You have to realise that yourself. That’s the one thing you need to get used to. Your AI doesn’t think like a human. They try to act human, to make sure you’re comfortable, but they aren’t. They’re alien. And just as they try to adapt to your preferences, you gotta learn how to work together with them, and how to ask them for what you really need. They won’t give you all the answers, you have to think for yourself.”

He stopped, glancing at each of us in turn. “You’re pretty well off for greenhorns. You got points, gear, whole armies, but you lack a lot of experience that comes from being a Samurai. And that’s fine. You aren’t doing anything wrong, you just aren’t using your full potential. Decide what you want to do, then get what you need to do it. Don’t limit yourself to what you already have, start thinking about what else you could do to help.”

There was a long pause, during which the three of us thought about what he said. It made sense. We were wondering a bit about how true it was, whenever we asked Kaysa for something we never specifically asked for what we could get with what we have, although at the same time, we also never specified that we would want to branch out. In that way, his comments made sense. Perhaps we had to start specifying what exactly we wanted.

Or maybe Kaysa specifically didn’t do that thinking for Us, to make sure we’d come to the conclusion Bobby just outlined. It would make sense and would fit her character.

Either way, we had to change our approach. The question now was, how could we branch out? What could we get to prepare, other than what we already had access to? It reminded Us a bit about our discussion about the Nanite Swarm Catalogue, something we have criminally underutilised up until now, always falling back onto our Hard-Light emitters and Hexclaws.

“I’ll give you some time to think through what I said, maybe prepare a little. Once you’re done, meet me at the entrance to the cave, I’m going to make sure there aren’t any surprises waiting for us.”

And with that Bobby turned and wandered off, leaving the three of us to deliberate. Chloe and Jenna quickly began conversing with their AI, and so we did the same, turning our attention to our Virtual Realm.

We found Kaysa’s elven avatar seated behind a far too elaborate and expensive looking mahogany desk. Sitting down on the comfy armchair that appeared out of thin air on the opposite side, we glanced at her, Kaysa smiling back at us, studying our expression but not saying anything.

“Before we go over what we can do to prepare, did you deliberately not tell Us what we could get?” The question wasn’t an accusation, just curiosity.

We didn’t think she would keep any solutions to herself with lives on the line, and during the undercity incursion we were pretty sure she helped Us as best as she could. But after yesterday, we were pretty certain that Bobby was right, at least to some degree.

In a way, yes. There are some things you could have obtained that I have not told you about. These items were not mission critical, but they would have made your life a whole lot easier.

We nodded at the confirmation. “We figured. Well, we figured now, at least, after Bobby mentioned it.”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I expected as much. You are not stupid, you just lack some imagination when in the heat of the moment. There are many tools at your disposal that you are not quite utilising fully.

“Like our nanite swarms?”

Like your nanite swarms.

“Okay, then what would you recommend?”

Why don’t you think for yourself first? I’ll tell you, if you truly wish, but I think you should take some time to think about it yourself.

Frowning, we nodded again. She was right, we should probably try to think more for ourselves in this regard. Even if it won’t help Us right now, as Bobby had said with Jenna’s approach, some things were important to learn early, so that in the future things were different.

Fully immersing ourselves in the chorus, we deliberated. We had a lot of ideas, although most of them felt a bit like a time waster. Others were good on their own, but didn’t really work all that well in the grand scheme of things. After quite some time discussing things, even if it didn’t take more than a couple of moments to the universe at large, Junior stepped in.

She began organising our thoughts with the help of Tiny, quickly sorting all the different ideas into different categories based on need and use case. Many ended up in the ‘situational’ list, things that would be good to have in certain circumstances, but really didn’t work all that well as a whole.

With this new structure in place, however, we quickly came up with a couple of things that would be useful to get. The most important one was transportation, of course, we just really didn’t know what we had available and how useful these different options were.

Second was the idea of giving our Hatchlings some weapons. The War Drones had their shoulder mounted Bile Spewers, in effect a biological rifle, that could be used for ranged combat, but the Hatchlings were kind of useless in that regard. While that might not be as important here, considering how tight the tunnels were, it was definitely something to keep in mind.

One of our Assassins had a biological rifle, something she had seldom used up until this point, considering the close quarters. But she had the option. It wouldn’t be standard issue, her weapon was designed to deal with larger threats from range, not mow down enemy forces. But the base idea was there.

Someone floated the idea of armor. We weren’t quite sure how efficient that was, especially once Junior threw in the idea to get a catalogue focused around materials to upgrade ourselves. Something we would have to discuss with Kaysa.

In the same vein, someone mentioned the idea of handing out more gadgets. That would be point intensive, considering how many of Us there were, but then again, that really wasn’t that much of an issue. Points were not something we were short on, at the moment. And it would be useful, especially if more of Us had the ability to spot stealth models, or deploy some specific anti-antithesis devices depending on the situation.

It was more situational, sure, but it would be a waste not to consider it thoroughly.

The discussion about armor sparked another discussion, this time about dedicated shield carriers. Some of the Hatchlings were willing to evolve into Heavy Duty Shield Carriers, the idea being that we could put down a temporary fortress. It would limit their combat ability most likely, but it would be very helpful. On top of that, one of them also voiced the idea of getting them something to utilise our Nanite Swarm Catalogue, since we didn’t use it that much up until now.

If they’d be sitting in one place, supplying Us with a defensible front, it would make sense for them to have some way of effecting the battlefield without the need to move. Junior also mentioned the Siverin line of Hexclaws, artillery models that, while not useful right now, would be a good addition in the future, working in tandem with the Shield Carriers.

From there, we came up with multiple ideas of upgrading some of Us. Mostly, those would be the higher ranking members of our Hive, at least until we could get the upgrades and resources to upgrade the rest along with them. Snuffles in particular would benefit greatly from more offensive options that didn’t rely on her jumping the aliens. With her Reaver squad being on clean up duty, having to chase down the aliens wasted a lot of time.

The Medical Corp was another thing that needed upgrades, and soon. We had lost a lot of voices just yesterday, and with more medical equipment we would be able to save more of Us, as well as be able to deliver aid to others more efficiently. To that extent, our Healer began to put together a list of things we would need. At first she wanted a medical unit dedicated to me, which felt a bit overkill, but eventually we settled on a few more broadly equipped squads that we would get, once the issue with the limiter was either unavoidable, or at least something we had time to get used to and deal with.

Bellona mentioned that she would like Us to experience that before it was actually disabled. Be it through a mesh dive, or a Dream Learning program, we wanted to know what we got into before it surprised Us.

With a more concrete plan, we surfaced once more, turning our attention back to Kaysa. She had watched Us the entire time, giving Us the space we needed to work through our ideas.

“Alright, we have some ideas, but we need to discuss a few of them first. We know what we want, but we aren’t sure how feasible some of these ideas are with the resources we have. In specific transportation is something we aren’t sure how to tackle.”

She nodded, leaning back slightly.

Of course. We can discuss this in a moment. First, I’d like to talk about something else. You have just spent some time planning ahead, but I don’t think you took all options into account.

“Oh? We haven’t even told you yet what we came up with. Can you read our mind or something?” The question was both meant as a joke, and as a more serious inquiry. We were curious about the answer.

No, I can’t. I wish I could, but mind reading isn’t possible. Sure, I could take a deep scan of your mind and simulate it, but that would take even me quite some time, more time than you spent deliberating, probably longer than this expedition would take, especially with how many of you there are. And even if I would jump through all those hoops, I could at best come up with a potential outcome. One of many. Human minds are fascinating and complicated, and while you are still biologically human, you also have a streak of Hexclaw in you, which would just make things even more convoluted.

So, no. I can’t read your mind. But I don’t need to. The fact that you immediately found something to spend your points on, knowing you, brought me to the conclusion that you haven’t even considered not spending any points.

We blinked at that. She was right, of course. That wasn’t something we actually considered.

“Well, we have the points. A whole lot of them. Having them just sit there seems like a waste, no?”

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Bobby’s advice was sound, and I agree with him, but he also left some things out. I’m not quite sure if it was deliberate or not, but I would wager that it was.

Sometimes it’s more reasonable to save your points, in case you need them to deal with a bigger threat in the future.

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t spend our points, then?”

No, you definitely should. You have a lot of points available and you have a lot of bodies to outfit. There are many things you can get to make life easier for yourself, some of which I consider a necessity if you wish to get this expedition done in a reasonable amount of time, before the antithesis have time to regrow.

The reason I bring this up is so that you keep it in mind in the future. Learning how and when to spend your points is one of the most important lessons you need to learn as a Vanguard.

We sighed. She was right, of course, but after the whole back and forth it felt a little confusing. First we didn’t want to spend any points, because we didn’t know what we should get, then Bobby told Us to think more broadly, and after we did that, Kaysa throws Us this curveball.

Well, whatever.

“Okay, noted. For now, let’s talk about upgrades. We don’t have too much time to waste, and we’d rather get back to it, before the antithesis decide to make life hell for Us.”

Indeed. What ideas did you come up with?

One by one we listed out all the ideas that we had, giving our reasoning and what we would want to get to accomplish it. Of course, we didn’t know what exactly we could get, so we decided to be a bit more broad with our specifications, inviting her to also consider catalogues we haven’t obtained yet. While we couldn’t upgrade any new catalogues, considering that we didn’t have many tokens, most of it should be doable with what we had available.

We did have some tokens, two to be exact, after yesterday’s fun. But if possible, we wanted to keep them, so that we could upgrade the catalogues we needed to prevent our voices from perishing. That was our number one priority at the moment.

Kaysa, of course, had a lot of ideas on how we could do what we wanted to. Most of it used our own catalogues, although she did recommend the Class I Modular Rifle Catalogue for the weapons for our Hatchlings. Specifically, this catalogue would be able to work well with the Nanite Swarm Catalogue, which was something we wanted to incorporate into their skillset.

Upgrading our existing drones was another thing that was surprisingly easy. While it required a bit of a roundabout way to get there, she did offer Us some insights in what we could do. With the help of the Class I Esoteric Elements Catalogue, we would be able to infuse ourselves with all kinds of different materials to enhance and reinforce basically every aspect of our bodies. Doing so before getting a new Hexclaw was trivial, and barely added any costs, but upgrading drones we already had, was a bit more involved.

Not much, mind you, but they would need to eat a sufficient amount of the materials they wanted to use, and afterwards they would be able to adjust the makeup of their body in relatively short order. Doing so was mostly instinctive, although we could get some upgrades in the future to make it a little bit more efficient and powerful.

Pretty simple, so far. The real problem came when we thought about giving them additional features, such as built-in Hard-Light emitters, for example. That was a bit more complicated, although it followed the same broad strokes. We couldn’t just obtain a Hard-Light emitter and have them eat it, we had to get the materials the thing was made of, which was overall a tad cheaper then getting the pre-built item, and afterwards they needed to form the finished product in their body. It took a little longer, but was, again, something they could do instinctually.

We set aside some points for the most important of Us to get those upgrades, with an additional budget planned, to upgrade the rest of Us. From now on, a percentage of the points we obtained would be put into that budget for their use.

With the weapons and the upgrades sorted, we turned our attention to the Shield Carriers. That wasn’t something we could do on the fly. It would require some time and materials for the Hatchlings to evolve into that direction, although with what we had available Kaysa anticipated that all of them would be done by the end of the day, if they were able to really get into the thick of things without dying. A bit risky, but neither of them complained.

“Okay, next up, transportation. We talked around this topic for a while now, so what do we have available? Both in terms of smaller transportation units, and something larger later, to take the pressure off of Jenna.”

There are some options. First, of course, is the Carrion line of Hexclaws, that is purpose built to act as transportation for any Hexclaw Hive. You could also obtain another catalogue for a more mechanical approach, which would save on biomass in exchange for other resources, but with the drawback of not being nearly as adaptable to any threats.

For smaller transports, I would recommend the Mark VIII Carrion Vulture. They have space to carry roughly thirty to forty of you, depending on the size of the drones, are fast enough to outrun most antithesis models, and have the ability to fly quite high, should they need to. They aren’t as space efficient as Jenna’s shuttles are, and they are a bit less resilient, considering that much of their biology is designed for flight, but they are a very efficient option for you to get your voices where you need them.

At 2500 points base cost, they aren’t the cheapest option, but they are point efficient and would be your best option for the moment. They also wouldn’t become obsolete, should you decide to obtain the Mark XIX Carrion Cutter I mentioned yesterday, with its teleportation capabilities. The Mark VIII Carrion Vulture is just barely small enough to utilise this system as well, meaning you can get them near their destination quickly.

We nodded at that, it sounded exactly like the kind of thing we needed.

“That is all, we think. There are some other items we want to discuss and get at some point, but they are all more situational.”

Taking a moment, we stretched. The entire discussion, while lengthy, hadn’t actually taken that much time, considering that the virtual realm was, well, virtual, and wasn’t constrained by real world physics. That said, we still had taken more time than Chloe and Jenna, both of them already finishing their shopping spree.

With the plan in place, actually obtaining all the things was surprisingly easy. The first thing was the materials catalogue, just so that we could use it to upgrade some of the things we wanted to get a little, since it wasn’t just limited to upgrading ourselves. Some of it was useful for the weapons, some for the Shield Carriers, some even for Jenna.

Talking about Jenna, she had wandered off at some point, returning to her fortress. We weren’t quite sure what she had planned, although we were pretty sure we’d see the results soon.

Chloe had gotten a few things, although for most of them we had no idea what they actually did. All of it looked to be gadgets of some kind, with only a few more weapon related things, one of which being a big box of ammunition, from the looks of it. She could use her weird storage for it, and we’d bet that it allowed her to load up specialised munitions into her weapons quickly.

The Carrion Vultures were not quite what we had expected, despite the name they reminded Us more of some of those fantastical birds from stories on the net, rather than actual birds that would exist in the real world. Their main body was bulky, which made sense, since they had to have some carry space, and they were a good bit larger than Jenna’s shuttles, considering the wingspan. That said, they also didn’t look as alien as they probably could have.

After some deliberation, we had decided upon a dozen of them. They wouldn’t all fit into the Bastion of Hope at the same time, but they didn’t need to. Mainly, they were for relocating forces we had already unloaded, taking the pressure off of Jenna’s shuttle schedule.

Jenna had also given Us access to one of her creation engines on board of the Corvette, so that we could start crafting ingots of the materials we needed to upgrade ourselves. That was a bit more expensive than we had first thought, mainly because some of the raw materials couldn’t easily be synthesised even with advanced protector tech, but overall it was still a lot cheaper than it could have been.

With all our upgrades done, our Hatchlings were still busy handing out the rifles we had gotten, we made our way over to where Bobby was waiting, Chloe at our side.

“So, finally ready?” he asked as we approached him.

“As ready as we can be. It will take some time to finish upgrading everything we want to, but it should at least help Us deal with the xenos.”

He nodded at Us. “Good. Now, if you are ready, I’d say we start for the day. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”