The Reaper’s Legion

Chapter 134

-Matthew Reaper’s P.O.V.-

The convoy was on the move again, trailing behind the admittedly aptly named crawler that Adira and her crew had rode in on. As much as I wanted to pick up the pace, I was aware that I personally wouldn’t want to leave any of my equipment behind to do so. The same went for the Leviathan Brigade’s leader.

It was strange, meeting Adira, or otherwise known as “Kaiju,” like meeting another version of myself in a way. She was an interesting sort, and I had to admit that I appreciated her company a great deal, contrary to what I expected.

And, there was the matter of her overall capacities, or rather the fact that we decided on something of a hybrid approach for command. When we were off the boat, Legion orders would preside. But while we were on it, she and the rest of the Brigade would be in command. The arrangement was a fair one, but also one that I accepted only on the grounds that they were competent. For once, I wasn’t wary of an external force working alongside my Legion.

Quite in fact, if this was a baseline in Basilisk then I believed that future talks of alliance would be in our best interests.

“Alright, the teams are ready to outfit with modifications. We’ll need to pick up a few things when we’re in range of the next Obelisk, though.” Daniel called over the comms, “The Dauntless should be fine either way, but I’ll wait on switching her kit over.”

Fran silently shook her head in the cockpit seat next to me, still perplexed that Daniel insisted that he refer to his mech with a gender at all.

“I hope you’re ready to settle in,” I answered, “looks like this is gonna be a long drive.”

We’d spent another night at the outpost, mostly discussing plans and familiarizing the Brigade’s leader with some of the team leaders that she’d likely run into and need to talk too. She spoke with them at length, and it was clear by the end of it that my teams wouldn’t have any day-to-day issues with her. Adira was easy to get along with in general, and her casual confidence translated to a general ease with others.

I sent a silent message back to Adira. At some point, we stopped talking about the mission, and more about our individual experiences with biotics. She’d been interested in knowing how I knew about pseudo-biotics, though I believed the question to be born out of curiosity, rather than anything else.

The discussion led to the many kinds of biotics, and to my own surprise I’d learned that Basilisk had dealt with their fair share of land-based biotics early on. They quickly grew out of that phase, however, given that their oceans were rife with life.

For one reason or another, the ocean was still teeming with fish, and Adira confirmed that fishing was very popular in the area. They’d used that to feed their burgeoning populace early on, even before the Obelisks, but after the Obelisks came they were faced with ever growing territory, and suddenly shrinking amounts of biotics.

When I asked her why they hadn’t set up farms, though, she’d explained that the entire concept was risky. They had no idea what the cores actually did, and at the time no one was thinking about trying to harvest them. I did keep my ability to interact with cores off the record, given that I didn’t expect that anyone outside of the Legion should be aware of that capability of mine, but I explained what we were doing with the cores and how we monitored them.

Granted, our operation was apparently much more aggressive than what Basilisk performed. Apparently Central took a half step between being a predominantly military force like we were, and to being a governing body, like what the Orders and Bulwark were.

In that, I realized, we’d gotten lucky. By separating our powers so clearly, the power structure in most cities under our general command was resilient, with overarching goals that could conform to each city. Basilisk’s rule, on the other hand, put far more focus on what Central wanted, and there was a great deal more bureaucracy.

Overall, our conversation topics were light, and while I was talking with my own team, I wanted to keep up the conversation with Adira.

“Matt, can you hold this?” Terry dragged my attention over to a workbench he was stooped over.

“What part?” I asked, looking at some kind of half-spherical device that was in literal pieces.

“Uh, here, and here.” He gestured to two… motherboards, would be my best guess, though they bore quartz crystals on their surface.

I shrugged, and held them in place as he soldered them into position, and then drilled through other parts directly into the casing.

“What is it?” I asked, staring at the thing as he flipped it over.

“Well, they’re buoys,” he started, “sensor buoys, able to link up to the Raijin Field. Which, I’m going to have to start modifying a bit next. Water and electricity aren’t good mixes when friendly fire is a concern.”

I nodded at that, watching him for a few seconds longer. He buried his nose back in his equipment, and realized he was absorbed again. I moved away, expecting that if he needed help he’d ask.

Moments later he called out another person randomly, and I couldn’t help but be amused at how Terry worked.

Outside we passed smaller cities, none as fortified as the outpost we’d come from. Even so, I couldn’t call them unguarded, several towers overlooking the territory along the edges. From here, I could just make out the unmanned turret at the top, and a catwalk under it with guards, hopefully ensuring that multiple angles would be covered at the same time.

They didn’t seem to be necessary this far into their territory, but I couldn’t say that I didn’t appreciate the precaution. Our cities were well adjusted to the fact that some hives were active around their cities still. Continued opportunities to harvest M.E. was worth the slight increase in risk. If it weren’t for the fact that we kept strict monitoring on the cores, we wouldn’t risk it. But, given the sheer armaments that we utilized as perimeter defense, I doubted they’d ever be able to grow enough to be a problem.

It was interesting to watch as we passed through the highways in these places, though, the people going about their daily lives. Intense nostalgia crept up on me, the likeness to a pre-apocalypse earth stunning.

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I looked at my biosteel hand, though, and knew that nothing would ever really be the same. Hopefully these people wouldn’t take all of this for granted, that they wouldn’t forget that the threat was still out there.

That was one thing that worried me, that the general population in Basilisk was getting used to the idea that biotics were losing.

Our edge of the continent was just that, an edge. There were thousands of kilometers of land to cover, and who knew what other abominations were brewing in less fortunate areas.

I forcibly dragged my thoughts away from that, though.

After hours of travel, though, I finally saw something that drew all of my attention.

Basilisk Port was large, having already been a fairly dense coastal city even before the apocalypse. However, unlike many of the other cities we’d traveled through, the vast majority of buildings and infrastructure had been updated. Our convoy, which I initially expected would have to take a wide detour around the city, was more than capable of going through one of the wide one way roads in the city. Whoever had planned for the update, I had to congratulate them on their foresight. Along with the larger roads, there were smaller railways suspended above them, being where the majority of the population got around, using railcars that varied in size from four-seat occupancy to the much larger trollies I was used to seeing.

The buildings themselves were adjusted to be sturdier, but also it was apparent that many of them bore interconnecting braces. Even across the spans between buildings, it looked like bare parts of the skeletal frame of the structures were reaching out and connecting to their more distant neighbors. It was professionally done, and many of the reinforcing structures were used for decoration.

The result almost felt like it was a city closed in on itself, but there was enough sunlight poking through the gaps, and enough garden-like vegetation all throughout that I couldn’t help but stare as we passed.

“This is pretty,” I heard Alice say, grinning from ear to ear, “I guess they take beautification seriously around here.”

I nodded, “guess we’d better step it up ourselves.”

Richard snorted, “I like our decor better.”

“I like the brooding, dark-lord theme better, but maybe we can branch out.” I heard Jessica say, a thoughtful expression on her face.

“We’ll see what ideas people have when we get back,” I chuckled, turning my attention back to the city. One area, a giant mall, was once more full of people, though I noted there was a distinct lack of any kind of personal vehicle in the parking lot. Instead, dozens of rails moved through and stopped at various locations, lowering down at stations and disgorging one group before another stepped in to take their place.

We used a similar system, but somehow this one seemed more in line with a metropolitan area. Probably because of the fact that it was perfectly mundane otherwise. We didn’t have any malls, though that was more due to our population just not seeing the point. Most of us had gotten adjusted to the idea that this was our new reality, though we had dredged some creature comforts back from the dead.

Then again, I couldn’t be sure. It had been a long while since I’d gone back to Gilramore. Maybe a visit would be in order after all of this was sorted.

Then, however, I saw the real object of interest.

The Obelisk of Basilisk Port was towering, the same size as the one we utilized for New Damond. It would give them the range to cover the entire port, and farther afield. I hadn’t noticed, but we’d been well within its influence for some considerable time.

Instead of a black surface, though, I found that it was predominantly white and blue, a trailing edge where both colors met a shining gold. It almost looked like a sapphire sheathed in white up until about halfway up, light playing across its surface with a gentle shimmer.

Around the Obelisk was a single, spanning ornate structure, though not one that was overly ostentatious. It reminded me more of a government building, and as we drove in parallel past it, I noticed the numerous mechs that presided over the territory.

I turned my attention to one of the roads parallel to us, keeping an eye on the unannounced escorts that we’d picked up since moving into the city. There were several mechs, ones outfitted much more effectively for land combat than the last ones I’d seen. They weren’t pointing any weapons at us, but I had no doubt that they were monitoring us for any hostile moves.

Richard, next to me, watched them as well, “I’d be nervous if an armed convoy was moving through my city, too.”

I nodded, wondering with a grimace if Adira intended to spook Central or if us moving through the city was a normal event.

Many people stopped and stared at our convoy as it rolled past, more out of curiosity than anything else. My many viewpoints from cameras in many of the Ogre’s fed me information, and, luckily, it didn’t seem that most people were concerned about our presence.

I suspected they trusted Basilisk to let them know if something bad was about to happen.

Finally, though, we moved down the port proper, the evening sun blazing on the horizon. It was no small wonder it took her so long to get to us in the first place, given how slowly the crawler moved with a full load.

“Hey, Matt, ya hear me?” Adira’s voice came over the comms in the Ogre.

Fran looked at me with an arched brow and a small smile, “She seems pretty casual with you.”

I shook my head at her loaded statement, “I can hear you, Adira.”

“Cool, so.” She paused, “we’re gonna need you all to follow us, we’re gonna move into the destroyers. I’m sending you all the info on which ones, just in case we get separated. The one I’m in is The Wendigo, and should be right up front.”

“Sounds good, I’ll follow you,” I nodded, and turned to Fran.

Who was still smiling, but pointedly not looking at me.

“She sounds nice,” Alice commented not so subtly.

I sent a glare at Alice, yielding only rolling laughter from the others.

“Sorry, sorry,” Fran chuckled, “you seem to get along well with this person though.”

“You do realize I’m made out of biosteel, right?” I asked dryly.

Then, from the back, I heard the normally very quiet Emma say, “Maybe she likes them hard?”

Everyone turned to look at her as we processed her words. A millisecond later, her skin flared a vibrant shade of red, “Uh, that was not the word choice I wanted.”

The laughter came back with a vengeance then, and I couldn’t help but laugh with them.

“It’s always the quiet ones,” Jessica joked.

I turned my attention to guiding the Ogre loosely. It was amusing that they thought as much, but I highly doubted anything like what they were expecting was probable. Adira seemed to be the sort to socialize with a lot of people, after all. Or at least, from what I’d seen.

Pushing that from my thoughts, I reminded myself of why we’d come here. First, we’d settle the Ogre’s in and see what we needed to do from there.

And, when the destroyer loomed into our view, I had to admit that they were most definitely heavily modified.

“That’s a big boat,” Richard whistled, “I hope nobody gets seasick.”