“What do you think about coming home?,” asked Cat. “I don’t think it’s good for you to stay out here.”

“I’m good, Cat,” said Harry. “This is what I live for. If I can keep expanding my

operation, I’ll be able to take the whole solar system.”

They stood near the wall, looking out over the desert. The lines of mobile guns kept moving on the track he had set up for them. Occasionally a flash of light lit something up in the desert.

“You’ll be fighting until you’re old as the hills,” said Cat.

“I’m good with that,” said Harry. “This world is empty. I can build whatever I want here. Imagine this downtown, or at Wu U.”

“A lot of people would be flabbergasted,” said Cat. “I doubt anyone would want a line of guns moving through their neighborhoods.”

“I know,” said Harry. “If we start moving people here, this place will come alive. The problem is I’ll still be using this as launch pad to move on to the other worlds they took.”

“So you’re going to keep fighting?,” said Cat.

“Until the day that I die,” said Harry.

“That won’t be long from the way you’re going,” said Cat. “You should come home and hang out and leave some of this behind if all of this is automated.”

“I will when other teams come in and start helping,” said Harry. “I think Nick is

passing info back to his buddies. I am pretty sure contractor bases will start popping up to help me out. Box is just the first.”

“So you are trying to make a school?,” asked Cat.

“No, but if that happens,” said Harry. “I will go with the flow and move on to the next target.”

“The guys want to help out,” said Cat.

“They can’t help with this except as analysts,” said Harry. “They don’t need to run out and kill xenos when they have their own lives to live.”

“They would love to sit back and fire cannons at things,” said Cat. “They want me to convince you to take them on.”

“Why would I do that?,” said Harry. “I got the boys, and they are great.”

“I think they just want to fly around in one of those cars,” said Cat. She smiled.

“I can’t let them do recon here,” said Harry. “They would get killed trying to deal with the big guys. I didn’t want to let Box go out on his own. But he has had more experience with the weapons of choice.”

“I think you should explain that to them,” said Cat. “If they get one of those bees, I’m afraid they might be walking home.”

“I can take them out and show them how things are,” said Harry. “Xenos might be able to come through the gaps in the wall. I expect they will get a surprise if they run into the mobile guns. The mana scanners pick them up despite their camouflage.”

“How good is the range?,” asked Cat.

“The small ones are good for a couple of miles,” said Harry. “Why?”

“What would happen if you put one of those scanners into orbit?,” asked Cat.

“I don’t have any idea?,” said Harry. “Hold on. Let me talk to Nick and see if we can do some numbers.”

He mumbled to himself for a bit. He smiled. He looked up in the red sky.

“That is such a good idea, Cat,” said Harry. “I should have thought of that myself.”

“What are you planning?,” said Cat.

“I think we’re heading into space,” said Harry. “Nick is calling Bubba to let Box

know what we’re thinking.”

“We’re headed into space?,” said Cat. “I don’t like that at all.”

“It’ll only be for a few minutes,” said Harry. “Let’s get the guys. They’ll love this.”

“I don’t think that’s the word for this,” said Cat. “But all right, I guess if we should go into space, we should go into space. I think you’re crazy.”

“Trust me,” said Harry. “I have a plan. A giant mana scanner is just what we need.”

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“They don’t have them on Earth,” said Cat.

“They don’t have a lot of traffic on Earth,” said Harry. He ran to the nearest open space he could use. He still had plenty of that thanks to his walls and guns keeping things out. “All we have here is us and the enemy. I should have thought of this before you got here instead of thinking about expanding my defenses.”

“Instead of slowly building a fort, you should have thought of a way to kill more of the enemy until you wore yourself out and went up in a ball of glory?” said Cat.

“I wish you wouldn’t put things that way,” said Harry.

“I call them like I see them,” said Cat. She tried to use her phone, but there was no signal.

“I’ll send them a text,” said Nick.

“Nick is calling them,” said Harry. He looked at his menu.

“Are you sure about this?,” asked Cat.

“The main problem is what is controlling the air space,” said Harry. “Otherwise, the rest should be a piece of cake.”

“Do you really think that?,” asked Cat.

“It will be cool,” said Harry. “You guys will even be able to see things from space you wouldn’t see on Earth.”

“Why don’t contractors advertise this?,” asked Cat. “It seems extremely useful.”

“Got me,” said Harry. “We’re going to need a mana scanner that looks all around it, but also able to read the surface. That will let me drop bombs on the chupacabras.”

“You can have a ground based system for looking outwards, and an orbital one for looking down,” said Cat. “You don’t have to set them in one thing.”

“But I like to,” said Harry. “But I guess you’re right.”

“Here come the others,” said Cat. “How are you going to explain this?”

“You do it,” said Harry. “You’re better at that type of thing.”

“All right,” said Cat.

“Nick sent us a message,” said John. “Are you coming home with us?”

“He’s taking us into space,” said Cat. “He thought of something he could do to clear the planet.”

“We’re going into space?,” said Guy. “We’re going into space? Do I get to fly the thing this time?”

“No,” said Harry. “You couldn’t handle the controls. I need lookouts and gunners. That’s where you guys come in. The autopilot will fly the space bee.”

“You don’t trust me?,” said Guy. “I do have flying experience.”

“So do I,” said Harry. “But I need you to be ready on the guns. The autopilot can shoot, but I think you guys can hit headshots if we need it. The computers always go for center mass, and I don’t think they always take in account windage.”

“So we’re going along,” said John. “What happens after that?”

“I’ll get you back here so you can go home,” said Harry. “I have to think about other things like guest quarters if people from Earth are supposed to come here. Right now, there’s nothing here to make people comfortable for their visiting.”

“How are you going to stop the xenos from trying to gate around?,” asked Guy.

“Once I control the planet, I’ll just have to worry about incursions,” said Harry. “And as long as the gates are outside my territory, I’ll have to hunt the xenos down and get rid of them so they don’t try to drop a kaiju on me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to try to do that alone,” said John.

“I’m sure other contractors will want to set up their own spaces to keep the xenos out,” said Harry. “They’re not getting a lot of points on Earth waiting for incursions.”

“And you can use that to hand over the planet and move on to the next one,” said John.

“The defenses are automated,” said Harry. “As long as the xenos don’t have hackers, we should be okay.”

“Do you know if they have hackers?,” said John.

“Nick says they have never seen one,” said Harry. “So I am good to go.”

“Let’s see this spaceship,” said Guy. “Bet you it looks like a giant bee.”

“I can build other aircraft,” said Harry. “I just don’t want to. Ant Man has ants, I have bees. It’s how things work.”

“Ant Man sucked compared to the Atom,” said Guy. “I just want you to know that. Plus they stole the Atom’s shtick for the movies.”

“Marvel had a microverse,” said Harry. “That’s how we got the Micronauts, Captain Universe, one of the Hulk’s wives, and the Psycho Man and the Invisible Woman’s Dom side.”

“The Atom had it first before Bill Mantlo was even born,” said Guy. “You lose, Bee Man.”

“Curse you and your fanboyism for a character who’s only ability is shrinking,” said Harry. He shook his fist in mock rage.

“Pot meet kettle,” said John. “Can we get on with the bee building? I still have

to go to work tomorrow.”

“All right,” said Harry. He opened his menu, and looked through the options he had available for ships and mana scanners. “All right, I think I have something. I’ll need more than one mana scanner. The biggest won’t even cover the hemisphere.”

“So you are going to need to drop more than one off?,” asked John. “How?”

“I can fabricate them in orbit,” said Harry. “I just need to set up so it will be like a mine layer.”

“Dropping them off the back?,” said Guy.

“Yeah,” said Harry. “I’ll need you guys more than I thought.”

“What are we going to be doing?, said Cat.

“I’ll need a lookout, someone to check the scanners when they come on, someone to make sure we don’t get hit, and someone shooting,” said Harry. “I’ll show you.”

He called for an aircraft. It did look like a bee. He ignored Guy’s I told you so and called on suits for his friends in case something came through the hull. He made sure the soles would stick to the hull in case something happened to the power.

He boarded as they pulled the suits on over their clothes. He went to the back. A fabricator and airlock sat at the back of the deck. He would have to push the scanners out behind them as they flew. He hadn’t seen an option for a boom in the menu.

Maybe he had missed it.

“Cat, take the seat up front,” said Harry. “Everything is voice operated. Just tell the ship what to do. If the voice operation doesn’t work, there is an arrow key pad and throttle board in front of the screen. Just ignore the rest of it if you can. You don’t need to know how fast we’re going, or how high.

“John, there is a weapon control setup and sensor reading next to Cat’s station. Normally I would run them both through the helm, but I want you both able to look out and make sure nothing is sneaking up on us.”

“Trackball and firing button?,” said John.

“Yep,” said Harry. “You can also just say something like track target one, fire. Voice command will help you there. Guy, you’re with me.”

“What are we doing?,” asked Guy, making sure his helmet/cowl was secure.

“We’re going to be chucking the mana scanners out into orbit,” said Harry. He made sure he was ready for space. “All right. Everybody ready to go? Activate systems. Voice command recognize pilot designated Cat and gunner designated John. Take us up, Cat.”