Ronin thumbed the tablet to turn the page. He’d been reading for the better part of two hours now, going through all the information Owl Two had given them. It was well laid out, each section including links, where more information could be reached for a deeper understanding of any given topic. He’d started with the overview, reading the entire summary, before he dove deeper.
Pausing, Ronin thought about what he needed to know the most. In doing so, his mind wandered back over the words K3 had said to him, only a few hours ago.
“You can’t.” He’d said, surprising both Ronin, and Elyria, if her face had been any indication. “You can’t do anything alone. And it isn’t your job to do anything alone. You don’t think you can do it? Even Leo asked for your opinion?... Wanna know why? Because he is just as human as you are, boss.” The Kaldarr jabbed a thick finger towards Ronin, to emphasize his point, as he spoke. “He doesn’t have all the answers either. He’s making it up as he goes along, same as us. The only difference is, he doesn't broadcast that to the world. He hides the insecurities, to make those who follow him more confident. Also, Leo knows what he, and his pride, are capable of.” Ronin wanted to ask a question then, but K3 raised a hand to forestall any words as he continued.
“Up tell now, you have been doing a decent job, but you haven’t taken that next step. To be a leader in battle, you only need three things. You need to know yourself, your people, and your equipment. You must know your capabilities, what you and your people know and are capable of, and what your equipment can do. You don’t have to know everything. But you do have to know the basics, and know who knows what, for when you need the information.”
“What about knowing the enemy?” Elyria asked, joining the conversation. “I had always heard stuff like ‘know your enemy, know yourself,’ why didn’t you mention them?” K3 didn’t look upset, instead he nodded gratefully, like he was about to raise the point himself.
“Good question.” He said, turning to look between her and Ronin. “Knowing your enemies is important. But it only matters after you know what your team can do. So what if you know exactly what your enemy is capable of if you don’t know what you have to counter him with? Knowing what you can do going into every fight doesn’t mean you will automatically win, but it reduces the stress you would otherwise face as you struggle to find a counter. As you see what the enemy has, you will know what assets you have that can challenge them.” He scratched his beard; it was a habit he’d displayed often when thinking.
“Think about the POWF card game for a second,” he said, tapping his deck box. “What good does it do you to know exactly what cards I have in my deck, if you don’t know what cards are in your own? Each time you draw a card, be it personnel or equipment, you won’t know the best way to use them, because you don’t know what else is in the deck. Should you hold onto that piece of armor for someone who could make better use of it, or is the goblin in play the best soldier you have? Knowing what you have to work with eliminates the variables, it means you don’t need to think about what you have when the enemy plays their cards, because you already know. So, no matter the enemy you face, you can face them with the confidence of knowing what you are capable of.”
Ronin nodded, finally understanding what he was talking about. Each time they’d gone into combat, he hadn’t known exactly what his teammates could do. He hadn’t known the limits of his own body, or the limitations of his guns. The wasp fight was a prime example, sure he didn’t know the wasps would swarm like that, but he did know there were wasps in the tree. He could have looked them up on his interface, or asked Elyria what the best way to handle them would be. He continued to nod as what he’d been doing wrong slowly sank in. Leading was like putting together a puzzle. He didn’t have all the pieces, which was true, but by fitting all the ones he had into place, he would be able to see some, if not most of, the picture. Instead of just feeling stressed about what he didn’t know, he could focus on what he did.
“Thanks buddy.” He’d said, before pulling out his tablet for a long overdue information gathering session. His friends had left him alone after that. K3 heading upstairs to grab a nap, while Elyria stayed behind to watch over Ronin. He barely noticed, so caught up was he with reading everything Owl Two had given them. He got angrier with himself with each new subject he’d read. The tablet Xerox had handed him didn’t just have pictures on it. The device was filled with information. Several books worth of it focused on the crystal trees and the creatures that called them home.
It also had an inventory list for what was included in the standard dropship, along with a layout drawing that showed what each piece was and an overview of how it worked. Most of it was useless to them, but at least now he knew the pulsating purple machine had been a soil analyzer. Sure, that wasn’t that useful to him, but being able to at least try and figure out how the med unit worked would be. His mind went, unbidden, back to when Elyria had been injured. What would he have done if the pair of them had been alone?
“How much of that do you think you’re going to be able to retain anyway?” Elyria asked, after another few hours had gone by. K3 had woken up and headed out to see how the new team was integrating into the existing crew, some time ago. That’s what Ronin had decided to call their little band. A crew. After he’d read that’s what they were called in the book. He snorted a laugh when he realized he was daydreaming again but shook it off.
“You have a point,” Ronin said, slipping his tablet into his equipment bag and standing up. “Let’s go check on the sparring. Hopefully, no one was injured, but if they are, I’d like to operate the med unit to fix them up. Reading will only get you so far, got to put the information into practice if you want it to stick.”
“Whatever you say,” Elyria said with an exaggerated eye roll. Ronin didn’t quite understand the reasoning behind that, since he had been agreeing with her, but whatever. Grabbing his cloak on his way out, Ronin clipped it back into place as he left the library. It was cumbersome, and got in the way often, but he liked the goat hide cloak. It reminded him of happier days. Plus, it looked really cool.
Exiting the house, Ronin got his wish almost instantly. Jackson was facing off against Jaya. The gangster was now outfitted with a fitted carapace armor suit, that on the outside, looked similar to Jaya’s. It was just a suit in her case, however. Jaya’s armor was part of her body, making it easier to move, and fight in.
“All you flat-foots are the same. Thinking you can just slap bracelets on us, and we’ll squeal for ya. Well, without your fancy heater I’ll be sure to…” Ronin listened to the woman’s smack talk for another minute without really understanding any of it. Not that it mattered all that much. Jaya put Jackson down in short order. Winning through a combination of her stronger body, and Jackson’s unfamiliarity with carapace armor. She’d demonstrated some moves though and Ronin had a feeling if the gangster had been on an equal playing field, the sparring match might have gone differently.
“Hey Jackson,” Ronin said, moving over to the woman, who was cursing up a storm to the silent Jaya. Ronin wasn’t sure if he’d heard her speak yet, now that he thought about it. “Let’s get you checked out at the med unit, ok?” He said, ushering his guinea pig, ah patient, over to the med unit they’d lifted from the gangster’s own ship. “Stand in there please.” Jackson grumbled the whole time, but thanks to what was likely a concussion, she didn’t resist too hard when he put her in the unit.
“Such a gentlemen,” Elyria muttered quietly beside him once he’d half dragged, half carried the punch-drunk gangster into the medical unit. “So eager to experiment on someone who can’t even defend themselves.”
“It’s not like that at all,” Ronin lied, as he plugged his tablet into the med unit. Since the machines weren’t programmed with human physiology built in, he had to add in the patient’s information. Thankfully, Owl Two had gathered what he needed on everyone in his party and helpfully put that into the tablet as well. Once he was done with Jackson, Ronin planned to load all their profiles into the machine, to make it easier for them to be healed in the future. “Here we go, Jackson. Just hold still for a bit.”
He’d barely started talking, when several tentacle-like arms snaked out and grabbed ahold of the woozy woman. A light flashed as the machine did a quick scan, and before she could struggle, a few more arms, tipped with wicked looking needles, shot forward. They plunged into her and pumped some healing version of tree sap into her body. Stabbing in and out, moving around to all the places she’d been hit. A few seconds later, she was healthy as ever, and came out of the unit swinging at Ronin like he’d been trying to kill her.
Unfortunately for the angry Jackson, Ronin snapped his helmet closed at the first sign of aggression, and she ended up with a broken knuckle. Some of the nearby soldiers rose at the blow, ready to intervene on their lord’s behalf. Ronin only waved them away and forced the cursing brawler back into the med unit. Where she was quickly captured and injected once more. Elyria, meanwhile, stood beside him, laughing so hard he thought she might burst.
“It really isn’t that funny,” Ronin said with a frown. “I was just trying to help her, and she’s near fully a baseline human. What did she think was going to happen?” He frowned after Jackson, who’d escaped the med unit as soon as it released her and was now doing her best to blend into the crowd on the far side of the chamber.
“Probably the same thing you thought would happen when you agreed to a sparring match with the new kids.” Elyria sniped, her laughter slowly tapering off as she looked at the gathering crowd. “Wonder what’s going on over there?” She asked.
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“No idea, but let’s go find out.” Ronin said, shutting down the med unit and heading towards the gathering. The ship was huge, but not so big that he couldn’t see that far away. No, the problem lay in just how much stuff they had packed in the room. He’d discussed packing it further into the ship and organizing it better, but everyone had agreed it would be a waste of time. Assuming they would just have to unload it again once they reached the lizard ship, and if not, they could always move it later.
Weaving through the gauntlet of equipment, Ronin and Elyria finally arrived at the opening the troops had been using as a sparring ring, to find K3 standing in the ring with K6, Ronin frowned and turned to Elyria.
“I thought you guys told me fighting them was a bad idea?” He asked quietly, as the pair squared off with one another.
“For us to do a six on three battle, bad idea. For you to fight them… in any capacity, terrible idea. But we need to show the younger generation that we are still better than they are… Well, some of us at least, doesn’t really apply to you though.” Ronin sighed, trying to pick out the valuable information from that explanation, without taking too much offence at the jabs at his person. She did have a point, even if it hurt his pride a little to admit it, even now.
“It’s difficult not to think of them as children.” Ronin said, looking on as the two fighters came together. Thankfully, they were both unarmed. The bodies the color force had made were impressive. Their strength and agility were well beyond what Ronin’s people were capable of. So, any weapons they wielded, even blunt ones, could be lethal.
“When we left a few weeks ago, if you include the week we spent being grown, they were ten to fifteen years old. Maturity wise anyway.” He continued, adding in the clarifier, because Dandelion had been eighteen and K12 had only been around five months old. Tank hadn’t even been born yet. “But for them, it has been ten years. Long enough for those with goblin blood, the yokai I guess they call themselves, to have reached middle age. Except for the ones Owl Two kept young with nanites… going to have to ask about that, since I didn’t think we had that many nanites… but anyway,” Ronin paused, trying to get his thoughts in order from the tangents he’d started down.
“Right, Dandelion. She’s twenty-eight years old now. Heck, I’m only thirty-five. Actually, I might be thirty-six now. I’m not sure, but the point is, it’s hard to think of them as children when they are so close to me in maturity level, if not actual age. Did any of that make sense?” He said, finishing with a question. Elyria watched the fight play out for a little while before she answered, clearly getting her thoughts in order.
“Then don’t think of them as kids,” she finally said with a shrug. “Age and maturity across races can be a delicate subject if you let it. Take me for example, I’m one hundred twenty years old. But elves age slower than most races. I wasn’t considered an adult by my people until I turned one hundred. Even though I reached physical maturity by fifty or so. That’s way older than your thirty-six years. However, you have been considered an adult by your race subjectively longer than I have. So, who’s older?... Ok, bad example, I’m clearly older, and more mature. But you get my point… When you start to throw in age defying nanites, and time dilation… you all might end up living as long as I will. Then, would we base your emotional maturity by my race’s standards, or yours? Just forget about it. Factor everyone’s personality into your plans, and don’t worry about the numbers.”
Ronin nodded, watching the fight as Elyria talked. K3 had so far dodged or redirected all K6’s blows. Following up with small jabs or kicks of his own that staggered the younger kaldarr, without doing any real damage. Ronin cracked a grin when the implications of what she’d said sank in.
“So, what you’re saying… is you consider me the same way you would an elf. Making me your equal?” Ronin asked, waiting for the explosive denial. To his surprise, however, it didn’t happen. Instead, Elyria just glanced at him, before turning away again.
“Shut up and watch the fight, White Flame, some things are better left unsaid.” She finished in a near mumble. Ronin blinked in confusion, not knowing what he’d said to upset her. So, after giving her shoulder a quick, reassuring squeeze, which caused her to flinch but not pull away. He did as he was told and dropped the subject to watch the fight.
It was ramping up now. Ronin hadn’t been trained in hand-to-hand combat, so what style they were using was a mystery to him. Assuming of course it wasn’t some alien combat style unknown to humans in the first place. What he could tell was that K6 was getting frustrated. She didn’t have a face, but it was clear in her body language. Each punch or kick she threw was either dodged or redirected away from K3’s much larger body. While the counters he made were all connecting with her. They were too light to hurt her, but that must have made it even more galling.
She moved faster and faster, each swing becoming less smooth and more rushed. Ronin winced at some of the near misses K3 was having. He knew just how hard the punches from a color force body were. If his friend was hit straight on with one of those blows, it would be straight into the med unit for him. Yet, somehow, he was able to move aside or push her attacking limb away, right at the last second, and while applying minimal force.
“I concede.” K6 said, some minutes later, stepping back and putting her hands up, palms out. “You got your point across. I couldn’t touch you, and it was clear if you’d put any real power into those blows, I’d have been dead several times over.” She sounded upset, but Ronin couldn’t tell if it was because she’d lost, or because he hadn’t hit her harder.
“Don’t underestimate the power of your body.” K3 said, panting slightly. “I was forced to use these tactics, because bare handed, my body isn’t strong enough to either hurt you, or survive many direct hits from you.” He said, sounding like he was praising the younger kaldarr woman. Yet, it only made her angrier, as evidenced by her hands, now at her sides, balling into fists.
“I don’t understand,” Ronin said quietly to Elyria. “I thought we didn’t want them to know we were weaker than they are. Why did he tell her? And why did she get mad about it?”
“Not quite,” Elyria said with a snort. “We didn’t want them fighting you. Because you are both less powerful, and less skilled at fighting. You couldn’t even beat Jackson in a hand-to-hand bout, and she was put down by Jaya, who wouldn’t stand a chance against either of those two.” She said, indicating the kaldarr with a jerk of her chin.
“Then, why…”
“Because, by having the fight… and winning it, before K3 told her she is stronger than he is, proved to her that even at a disadvantage, he’s better than her. If he’d said it before, she might have gone easy on him and when she’d lost, there would always be the shadow of doubt she might have won, if she’d pushed harder.”
“That, seems a little cruel.” Ronin said with a frown, watching as the pair bowed to each other and K6 left the sparring area to return to her team. While K3 moved over to join Ronin and Elyria.
“Maybe,” Elyria said, as K3 reached them. “But it was necessary. You’ve done the same thing on more than one occasion, although with the benefit of hindsight, I realized you had no idea what you were doing at the time.” Before Ronin could voice his confusion, K3 joint in to explain.
“When you first met Lily, you killed a queen in melee combat, fell off the wall, then showed up to a meeting with her, completely fine and acting like it was no big deal. Before giving her an ultimatum, she was terrified to refuse.”
“Ok… I guess I can see that, but that wasn’t my intention…” Ronin said, trying to justify himself.
“You did it to me too.” Elyria said with a chuckle. “In your drop ship, shortly after we’d met. I stabbed you, drove my knife to the hilt in your chest. Then, you calmly pulled it out and handed it to my sister. Asking us to wait for a bit, while you jumped out of a spaceship to fight a giant bug, hanging from a cable. Looking back on that moment, you really made me… Well anyway, it’s a tactic that works. So don’t overlook it going forward.”
“She’s right boss,” K3 said. Smiling at Elyria, who was now giving him a dirty look. “Proving you’re better than a subordinate isn’t cruel, it’s just proving you deserve to be in a higher position. By fighting her, and winning, I’ve proven I’m better. The fact I obey your orders without questioning them, proves you are, by default, on top.” Ronin nodded, getting the point at last.
“It would be better though,” he said glancing between the two. “If I could back up that position… It might not be the best time for it, but I think I’m due for another round of intensive training. I learned a lot last time, but it clearly wasn’t enough.”
“There’s never a good time to do anything on campaign,” K3 said with a grin. “Still, I agree. You have a lot to learn boss.” He scratched his beard, as he looked around the large compartment. “But not in here, we’ll have to set up in the engine room…”
“And not until after we take care of the ship tailing us.” Elyria chimed in. “It’s possible, even likely that whoever is back there is just as strong as the color force was. We’ll need everyone in top condition for that fight. After that, you can get yourself beaten to a pulp as much as you want.” That was a chilling thought Ronin hadn’t considered before. He shuddered as he thought about a ship full of warriors strong enough to kill half his crew with one punch each.
“What are we going to do about them?” He asked his companions, worry written all over his face. “I hadn’t even considered them being that strong, but the color force bodies were all government issue, weren’t they? So, it stands to reason all the government soldiers would have them. Or something similar at least.”
“That’s something I’ve been thinking about myself.” K3 said, leaning against a mobile fabrication unit. “Thankfully, we won’t be engaging them hand to hand. At least, not unless things go terribly out of control. I know many of our battles end up in melee, but that doesn’t have to be the case. We have enough people and enough guns now; we can keep our distance.” Ronin nodded, it was a good point, and something he had to keep in mind. In the pocket world, ammunition had been limited, at least in the mark Vs, so Ronin had just gotten into the habit of saving the rounds for when it counted. They didn’t have to do that now, at least as long as they had the fabricators to whip up new pellets, and compressors to provide pneumatic power for the shots.
“You know what,” Elyria said, frowning in concentration. Ronin noticed the crinkles that had formed between her blue eyes, as she thought. Shaking the thought aside, he focused on her words as she continued. “I was thinking, while we were talking about putting the mining equipment on the exosuits. What if we…”
Ronin and K3 exchanged a look as Elyria explained her idea. It might actually work, and now that Ronin knew about the larger fabrication units, it was even more likely. The trio stood there, amidst a pile of cargo, for an hour. They were bouncing ideas off one another, trying to figure out the best way to make the plan work.
“Ok,” Ronin said after a bit. “K3, would you grab an exosuit and meet us in the engine room? The larger fabrication unit is already working in there, and now is as good a time as any to see if this will work.”