“Well that’s that job jobbed.” John said. Off to the south side of what had once been Normanby a five hundred metre wide platform had been erected. Arcing struts supported it, broad and shallow enough that people and vehicles could travel up them easily. The portals were arrayed in concentric circles across its surface with three metre wide roads forming a series of concentric circles when viewed from above. Being elevated so high it cast a constant blue glow over the whole of the centre of Wayfaire, day and night.
“Seemed the easiest way. There’s going to be a lot of construction work going on. We’re throwing up fortified positions with support facilities around the exits from the Monarch’s Way. They won’t be manned until nearer the time but having the infrastructure already in place gives us a lot of flexibility. The invasion could land anywhere, and will probably land everywhere to be honest, so having this network of bases setup will make it easier to react when the time comes,” said the small drone hovering next to John.
“Any complaints about the light?” John asked as he studied Bob’s handiwork.
“Nope. Lots about having it looming over the city centre like a misplaced car park though. Greg told them to sod off.”
“That doesn’t sound like Greg?” John asked as he pivoted in the air to glance at the drone. It bobbed up and down briefly, its equivalent to a shrug.
“He was a bit more diplomatic but that was the gist of it. Can you feel it? It’s like the whole word has come alive! Everything is being pushed towards defence and preparation. I’ve had to online another ten server-Bobs!” Bob sounded strangely happy to be so busy. John had always preferred a nice, steady routine, being busy had usually meant something had gone wrong and needed fixing urgently.
“Yeah. It does feel different.” Different was pronounced in a way that suggested it wasn’t necessarily better. “What’s the plan for Doris? I’m not sure the rest understood just how massive she is now. Will I be able to teleport her?”
“You should be ok. She’s just under twenty thousand tons without the antigrav systems online. With them running she’s under twelve thousand. She’s going to be sporting a backpack which will punch her up a couple of thousand, though.”
John blinked. “Why is she going to have a two thousand ton backpack? It’s not like we’re going hiking and there’s always the stash,” he said, confused.
“Remember the third wave? We couldn’t access the stash for months. I for one am not going without at least the essentials for that long again,” buzzed the drone.
“Good point. Can you make sure a decent supply of tobacco is in the back pack please?”
“Already done. That and whiskey.”
“I hope you left a little bit of space for things like food?” John grinned.
“Oh yeah. It’s also a modest production facility. Scaled down versions of most of the main reactors and fabrication plants are included, along with a hundred B-3000s. Bob-prime has a little fortified house at the back of Doris’ skull as well.”
“Good thinking Batman.”
“She’ll be clumsy as hell until she can drop it somewhere but it’s worth having those facilities accessible under any circumstances,” The drone replied. “Have you spoken to Ryn?” Bob changed the subject. He was always a little shifty about his first and favourite machine.
“Yeah. She’s not happy about moving to Mars but she understands. The rest of her team have agreed to join her so you’ll have the first semi-permanent Martian colonists in a couple of days,” John said, trying to make the best of the situation. Wherever he had been sent, wherever he had chosen to go since the advent, he had always been able to get home easily. Globe trotting and being home for tea with his family had been the norm. When Evie moved out there had been a void but leaving home was healthy and he had accepted it. Now he felt like he was abandoning his younger daughter.
“She’ll be fine, mate.” The drone seemed to read his thoughts and John's adrenaline spiked. “Ha. I’m just reading your life signs, relax. I thought you’d gotten used to it?”
“Sometimes I forget. I’m pushing sixty years old now,” John replied ruefully.
“And you don’t look a day over thirty. Thank god for Pete’s little treatments, eh?” the drone chuckled. “Not a problem I need to worry about.”
“Now that you’re an immortal drone swarm? Hah. I’d rather be blood and bone. How is Pete? He and Shelly haven’t replied to any messages for the last couple of days.” John asked.
“I’d rather be the old me as well.” Bob said sadly. John rarely heard Bob complain about his situation. The loss of his original human body was something that Bob had taken in stride and had never seemed to be an issue for him. “Still, it’s better than being dragon shit!” The drone perked up. “Pete and Shelly are busy.” Bob’s lack of further explanation pricked at John’s mind but he decided not to push. The Dragon and his creation could make monsters. If John had to guess Pete was busy setting up hives across the globe, likely mirroring Bob’s forward base plans.
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“Am I going to get forgetful? All the usual ageing stuff?” John wondered quietly to himself.
“Probably. We only need to last another fifty odd years though. Once the Invasion is dealt with we can retire and take it easy.”
“Only another fifty years?” John muttered.
“Well plus however long it takes us to deal with the Void. Most of that is going to fly by though. We’ll be off world for a few years from our perspective but time dilation will mean most of that fifty years will have gone by when we get back. Call it another ten years or so of relative time to get through the Invasion, then we can park up and… I dunno, found a vineyard or something?”
“A vineyard?” John raised an eyebrow.
“Whatever insanely rich and powerful people do when they get old. Buy an island? Meddle in politics? The world will be our oyster, John.”
“You seem remarkably confident about all this working out. What’s the success rate against a Void invasion? Less than 50%?” John asked.
“As you damn well know we don’t have hard numbers on that but from what Jintak and Grell have said, coupled with what we’ve gleaned from Life and War, at least 50% survive to the point where Void monsters are an endemic pest but they don’t lose their world. The ones who actually clear out the invasion? Probably less than 5%.”
“One in twenty? That seems high. If this is happening across millions of worlds, one in twenty is a huge number of wins.”
“Agreed but we don’t know how many worlds are out there. Maybe an Advent only happens once every century or maybe there are thousands of them a year. It’s pure conjecture.” The drone bobbed up and down again.
“So what you’re really saying is we don’t have a fucking clue,” John grumbled.
“Pretty much. We’re going to operate on the assumption we can win, and win properly. We’ve got a lot of advantages and now all the tribs are dealt with, or about to be dealt with at any rate, we can really knuckle down and turn good old Terra into a real terror for the Void. We’re going to eat them up and shit them out when they get here. Literally in the case of Pete and his pets. Going into a fight expecting to lose is a bad idea.”
“Never let realism get in the way of motivational propaganda. Dammit Bob, I’m leaving my daughter and a bunch of friends on the assumption we can get strong enough to make a difference.” The drone circled round in front of John as he scowled down at the new structure looming over his old home town.
“John. There’s no such thing as a sure bet. I thought you were all set for this new adventure?” Bob asked. John narrowed his ruby eyes at the drone, seeing through it for a moment before bringing his focus back to encompass the machine. It was all whirring wheels and pulsing cables on the inside. It was fascinating to be able to see the flow of power and force as its parts synergised to let it function and fly.
“Now we’re set on the course, I'm second guessing myself. Just ignore me. So what’s next?” he asked.
“With the new portal network set up I need you to move the interplanetary portals into the sub-basement of the Bunker. Then it’s barbeque time before we officially sign up and go gallivanting off into the black ocean. Does black ocean work? I was going to say Void but the pricks coming to mess with us have kind of nicked that.”
“Black ocean is fine in small doses,” John chuckled.
He blipped down to the sub-basement and looked around. He also looked through everything around him. He was at least half a mile underground and surrounded by materials that would have driven a pre-system engineer insane with envy. The walls were made of some composite of alien resin and refined stone, reinforced with Bob’s finest dragonsteel.
The area was accessible through a single narrow corridor, constructed equally as heavily as the three metre thick walls, which started in one of the most heavily fortified locations in the Bunker. Recessed weapon systems were built into the walls and it had its own drone factory, stacked with tons of construction materials, to constantly provide new defenders. John pulled his vision back and then zoomed out once more.
“What are the weird hexagonal objects in the walls?” he asked.
“Demolition charges. Our orbital facilities are one of our major edges over the Monarchs, if we ever fall out with them. Those charges are part of a larger network that will collapse the entire bunker.”
“They could just dig through it? I could blip out twenty thousand ton chunks and dig down pretty quickly if I had to. And what the fuck will happen to Ryn and anyone else on Mars if you use these bloody things?” John snapped.
“First of all you missed the casings.”
“I didn’t miss them. I can see everything. That didn’t sound like I meant it to. What did I miss?”
“The outer layer of the charges shielding. Have another look.”
John did so and saw rows of what looked like bullets circling the charges horizontally.
“You see them?” Bob asked and John nodded. “Those are filled with, well, think Anthrax on steroids.”
“Life can just kill them,” John said unhappily.
“Yep but it’s also filled with stuff that makes CX gas look like helium. And enough fissile material to irradiate the remains of the bunker for generations.”
“Jesus Bob,” John whistled. “Setting aside all the war crimes this represents, what happens if you have to use the damn things? Ryn will be stuck on Mars for years!”
“Nah, I’m turning Deimos into a shipyard. They’ll have a fleet of flying saucers to play with in a few months. Call it a year's travel time without the portals so Ryn could be back in orbit in 18 months if things go sideways. Orbital construction is going to ramp up over Earth a lot as well but we can’t move those portals, they need access to raw materials.”
“So Fortress Earth is your project for while we’re away. That and looking after Ryn!” he scowled at the drone, his red eyes adding an infernal touch to his glare that he appreciated. He’d been trying it out in the mirror when he was brushing his teeth and the result was intimidating. The effect was completely lost on Bob.
“Yep. Both of those plus running the global economy, keeping an eye on our new glorious overlords, making sure Pete doesn’t accidentally sterilise the planet etc etc. You know, the usual.”