Nora stared at me for a moment. “Is that some sort of joke?” she finally asked.
“Unfortunately not. There’s a blob of what looks like plastic explosives stuck underneath one of the heavy artillery cannons on the south wall.” I took control of the squirrel and backed away from the emplacement. It was part of an entire artillery battery built directly into the city’s perimeter wall. I summoned a couple extra squirrels to check the rest of the cannons, before focusing on Nora again. “It appears to be a perimeter gun, for dealing with swarms that land outside the city.”
“Shouldn’t we report this?” Nora asked.
“We will, I just want to check the surrounding emplacements first,” I replied. As the first squirrels arrived on location I directed them to the other artillery emplacements, almost instantly discovering additional explosives. Surprisingly, that seemed to be the extent of the damage. The surrounding anti air emplacements were untouched. “So good news? It only appears to be the external facing defenses that are compromised. I think. At least I don’t think they’d fire something of that caliber into the city. Bad news? It’s the entire battery that’s been compromised.” I took several stills, added exact coordinates to each, and sent them over to Nora. “Those are the ones that are compromised. Can you send the data to Hel please?”
Nora nodded slowly. “You think this is only sabotage?” she asked.
“We can only hope,” I mumbled. “That’s why we’re out here checking. This is directly above the southern industrial district, so it could have been done by that nutcase that Helen and I apprehended, but I doubt it’s completely isolated. We’re only twenty percent through our survey and we’ve already found something.”
“So now what?” Nora grumbled. “We just leave it there, and move on?”
“I don’t know how to disarm them, do you? Since they didn’t detonate the explosives shortly after planting them, I can only assume the plan was to wait until a later time. We’re better off leaving the bomb disposal to an expert, and working to identify any other issues,” I explained.
“If you think so,” Nora said hesitantly. “I still think we should keep an eye on things here, just in case.”
“I can leave a couple squirrels around, and send some bears to back them up, if you’d like. It wouldn’t be hard to keep people out of the area until the explosives are dealt with,” I suggested. “Make things safer.”
“I would appreciate it,” Nora admitted, giving me a small relieved smile.
“No problem,” I replied, sending the command to the nearest bears. It only took a minute until a Kodiak flew past us, disgorging the bears to secure the area around the emplacements. “Now that’s sorted out, let’s continue with the survey. If there’s any more explosives out there, I want to find them before they become an issue.”
Nora just nodded, and turned back to her monitor.
—
“How many?” Hel asked. Nora and I had just finished pulling our second sixteen hour shift on the marsupial, finally finishing the survey and I thought we should report the results, so I contacted Hel on the bridge’s biggest monitor. Apparently she wasn’t happy with the results.
“Eighteen sets, all on the southern wall, and all outward facing weapons. Mostly artillery positions, but several anti tank emplacements too,” I reported as I slumped in my chair. “We reported them as we discovered them, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Didn’t you send people to disarm them all?”
“I did, but I’ve been so busy trying to keep the different factions within the Family from completely splintering, that I just approved the disposal as soon as the request came in,” Hel said, grabbing her forehead. She looked as tired as I looked. I couldn’t imagine dealing with all the egos floating around that HQ. “Nothing destroyed though?”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Everything appeared to be operational, at least according to my engineers. You’ll need someone else to go over the network and control system,” I replied.
“Good. Please keep these results to yourselves for now,” Hel said as she sat back, “I don’t want to cause a conflict.”
“From who? The Corps? The Citizens?” Nora asked.
Hel sighed. “Well, them too, but I’d be more worried about one of the factions. They’re acting like children! If one of them found out the defenses were sabotaged, I’m sure they’d find a way to use that information to try and bolster their position.”
“That’s fine, I didn’t plan to share it with anyone anyways,” I reported tiredly. “I doubt you can keep it hidden for too long though. Many samurai, myself included, have ways to hack networks.”
“Yeah, well the network was built by Zetta, and he’s promised to maintain neutrality,” Hel replied, smiling for the first time. “It’s one of the things that’s made my job manageable. That, and the fact that you’re not a member.”
I frowned. “I’m not sure if I should feel insulted by that or not.”
“Please don’t,” Hel said with a chuckle. “I certainly didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that you’re outside the conflict. Both you and Humboldt have encountered more in the last few months than most samurai have encountered in years. You’re both well known, and powerful, compared to most of your peers, so if you joined one side it would definitely influence the balance of power.”
“Eh… Even if I was a member, I probably wouldn’t get involved. I don’t like politics,” I told Hel.
“Yet you still yelled a Mirage,” Hel pointed out, “and committed bears to the city’s defenses. People would have taken that as you supporting the anti-corporate faction.”
“Well, if the anti-corpos want to come and try and recruit me, I’ll go tell them to fuck themselves too,” I declared. Hel shook her head slightly, a slight smile on her face. “So… how are things going on your side anyways? Any progress on getting people to work together?”
“Unfortunately not,” Hel replied, slouching in her chair. “One side wants to support the incumbent corporate board, and the other side wants to restore some sort of democratic representation to the city. They only seem to care about pushing their agendas.”
“You know, the timing of this conflict seems a little suspicious,” Nora cut in. I turned and looked at the girl, who was obviously fighting desperately to avoid falling asleep. Head propped up by one hand, eyes half closed. That hadn’t occurred to me, maybe because that was just another thing that would have supported Mirage’s crazy theory about someone attacking the city.
I glanced back at Hel. Based upon the surprised look upon her face, I guess that idea hadn’t occurred to her either. “No one would be stupid enough to mess with a samurai in order to try and disrupt a city,” Hel muttered. “But I’ll ask Zetta to look for suspicious communications to our members, just in case. If someone is stirring up trouble, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Nora giggled, “Heh, Hel to pay.”
“Sorry, neither of us have slept properly in a couple days. We accelerated our schedule, and automated as many of the checks as we could after finding that first set of explosives,” I explained.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hel immediately dismissed Nora’s interruption. “It’s my fault. There were only two people in the city I could have asked to do this, and you were the only one actually available. I do appreciate that you two accelerated the checks, once you found those initial explosives. We still have no idea who planted them, or who sent our friend.”
I cocked my head. “He still hasn’t given anything? After weeks in custody?”
“Well, we did... but nothing helpful. We interrogated him for several days straight, but it was Helen that managed to finally drag some information out of him, by befriending him, with a little help from her tech. He works for a mercenary agency, which was hired by a mysterious third party. Paid in cash, and instructions delivered through dead drops. We're trying to track it back, but it's unlikely we'll find anything,” She shook her head. “Anyways, you and Nora have had a rough couple days, and I appreciate the work. Thanks for checking in, but try and get some sleep.”
“Alright, thanks,” I muttered, trying to suppress a yawn. “You should try and get some rest too. You can’t solve all the city’s issues in a single day.”
Hel smirked, “I can try. Take care.”
As Hel disconnected I looked over at Nora. The girl gave me a wide, goofy grin. “We did good, right?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “we did good.”