It took us thirty minutes to enter the city limits, as we could only move as fast as the tank. Upon arrival, however, we were met by three trucks with six men each in the back. Most were carrying AK47s or AR15s, most of which were built in Anarchist’s Redoubt. There was, however, a pump shotgun and an M1 Garand. They identified themselves as being scouts for the City and asked us to identify ourselves. After we told them where we were from and that we were there to help them defend the city, they escorted us back to the old national guard building the militia was using as a base.
I talked to the army Sargent that was in charge there and told him about the two hundred or so troops we sent to the city. He had already been informed of that, and said that the city would be sending this camp rail guns that we got when we were attacked. A few minutes later someone came in and notified the Sargent that one hundred rail pistols had arrived for the men stationed here, along with instructions teaching them to claim the pistol, and therefore set themselves as the valid user.
Soon he received a message that the enemy had engaged a group of salvagers on the outskirts of town. The Sargent ordered the scouts to head up there and evacuate them, and we joined them, leaving Di behind as she didn’t want to fight.
It took us a few minutes to get there, only to find a police precinct building completely surrounded by Grilk, a Jotun, and dozens of animals. The doors had been barred shut, but the enemy had already broken through enough that Grilk corpses were mostly plugging the hole with their bodies. Their allies were pulling them out of the hole, only for gun shots to ring out and drop a few more of them when more Grilk or animals tried to force their way through.
The Jotun was making some progress, as they had knocked in a second story wall by swinging a car at it. Three humans appeared to be emptying magazines into it from their AKs, but were only annoying it. Occasionally the Jotun would bend down and pick up a few of its allies, setting them inside only for them to be quickly mowed down.
“Fire on the Jotun. We need to draw it away from the building so the tank can get a clean shot.” I called out, and the troops started unloading on it with the mounted weapons on the Humvees, and, as they were at least bruising it, it turned and started toward us. They drove away from it, continuing to fire on it and any of the other enemies that were near it. After twenty seconds or so the tank was able to lock onto it from its side and fired, blowing a hole through its middle, killing it.
With their best ally dead, the Grilk stopped trying to enter the building, instead drawing their pistols and firing back at us. As we were far more maneuverable and spread out, only three of us were hit before we wiped out the enemy.
Seeing that the enemy was dead, the salvagers unblocked the door and came outside. They had started with eight people but three of them were now dead. The three women in their group went to the gas station next door to recover the body of their friend, and the two men carried the bodies of their two friends out, throwing them in the back of the scout trucks. The women returned with the body of a fourth woman and threw her in the last truck before going back to loot the Grilk.
“We need to get out of here! We don’t have time to loot them!” yelled one of the city’s scouts.
‘Vera, can you load the rail pistols into my inventory?’ I asked.
‘Not your property, so not remotely. If you touch them, you can store them, though.’
I ran over and started grabbing pistols, transferring them into my inventory. After grabbing twenty three of them and verifying that there weren’t any more outside of the salvager’s property, I ran over to the Jotun. “Come on, we need to head out!” I yelled. “The guns are the only thing worth taking.” I fired my pistol into the Jotun’s neck several times until I could tear the head off, then hopped on my flying disk as the salvagers climbed into the trucks.
When we arrived back at the base I showed the Sargent the Jotun’s severed head I asked to use the base’s teleportation orb. He shook his head. “I know we want to keep your creepy trophy, but we can’t spare the power.”
“It’s not a trophy. I can send it to a friend of mine and he can pull the security codes for the pistols. If he does it fast enough, we’ll have more railguns for the battle.”
The man nodded. “Fine, just make sure the city gets to use the guns during the battle. We’ll give them back afterwards.”
“Fine by me,” I responded, “Just make sure the salvagers get the codes so they can use the ones they grabbed as well.”
I sent Silan, who had returned home to notify Tarn that they were attacking human settlements in mass, asking him to get us the security codes from the head ASAP, then teleported the head to Fort Solinan. About a minute later he notified me that the hacker estimated at least twenty seven minutes to do the job, the strange time interval being the result of the translation and the fact that they use different units for time. I gave him the contact info for the Sargent so that he could send the security codes directly to the man, and dumped the twenty three pistols I had salvaged on his desk.
As our scouts joined theirs in patrolling the area, and the tank driver double-checked everything before the battle, I flew up and looked around for signs of the enemy. I saw movement to the north and, when I got close enough for my Eagle Eyes to pick put individuals, I noticed over a hundred Jotun walking by buildings. I sent a message back to Di telling her to relay that info to the Sargent.
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I gathered up a thousand mana worth of nanites in between my palms, forming it into a ball, and ordering them to start splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, and store the hydrogen. I flew up until a kilometer or so, my underarmor preventing me from freezing, and told the nanites to release all of their energy as heat upon impacting something solid. I then saved the program as “mana bomb” and dropped it off the side of the disk into the middle of the group of Jotun.
“Good, you’re back,” said Di as I landed. “We heard an explosion and I was worried.”
“Oh, that was just me, insuring that the next engagement will require them to have an air force or risk losing their troops. I’ll have to teach that spell to the mage corp when I get back to town, so they can bomb the enemy as well.”
“Hate to break this up,” said our tank driver, “But Paul just got a call from Silan. The enemy was spotted near Fort Solinan and they are asking for our help.”
The Sargent came over. “Well, tell them you’re busy. We need you here.”
“I can’t.” I said. “We signed a mutual defense pact with them.”
“Well, break it. Let the damn aliens fend for themselves.”
I sighed. “You don’t know who got us the codes for the rail pistols, and is currently working on getting the code for the ones on your desk, do you? He’s one of their hackers.”
“So, you need a hacker? We can get you one.”
“You can’t hack these things by connecting a computer and looking for security flaws or guessing a password. You need to convince them that you are the valid heir of the dead Jotun. Tell me, how much do you know about Jotun culture?”
“Nothing, but we can do without the guns for now. You can just make more.”
“If that was the only benefit our alliance got us, sure. But they taught us about the GCA, how they manage their troops, combat tactics, and about all of the species we’ve seen so far. And we’ll need their knowledge in the future if new races or tactics show up. You might not like these ‘damn aliens’, but they held up their end of the treaty, so we need to hold up ours.”
“We’re also only here as volunteers, and con leave any time we want.” said the tank driver. “So you can’t force us to stay.”
“Like hell I can’t. Men, draw weapons!” He called out an order, and all of his men drew their weapons, pointing them at us.
I took a step towards him, causing his men to tense up. “I want you to think very carefully about what you are doing here. We are the closest thing to an ally you have in this world. So you can open fire on us, insuring that you have two enemies to fight, or you can order your men to stand down, and allow us to leave. And maybe I won’t report this to your superiors.”
The Sargent scowled at me and spit on the ground. “Stand down, men.” They relaxed and lowered their weapons.
With the tension gone, the tank driver walked over and spoke to me just loud enough for the Sargent to hear. “You know, the battle at the Fort would be behind a wall. The vehicles won’t be useful there, so I was going to suggest that the Rangers stay here. But now that they drew weapons on us…”
“You’re right. It’s too big of a risk to leave you here.” I pretended to think for a few seconds before addressing the Rangers. “The Rangers are to go to St. Nicholas Outpost and defend it and its people from the enemy.” I then looked at the Sargent. “Maybe you can keep the enemy from flanking the city’s forces from the East.”
The men saluted and hoped back in their vehicles before leaving. I looked at the Sargent again. “May we use your teleportation orb to get o our allies, or will we need to fly there?” I pointed to Di and myself, then at the flying disk.
The Sargent sighed. “The two of you, and only the two of you, may use the orb to get to your alien allies.”
I nodded. “Thank you.” I stored the disk, then Di and I went to the orb. Upon touching it HUD showed me all of the teleporters nearby that it could connect to. While all of our teleporters and the ones in the city were marked green, the GCA base was marked red and Fort Solinan was marked yellow. I selected the fort, with the two of us as the cargo. “This location is owned by a non-human faction that hasn’t shown overt hostility, but as such may not be safe. Are you certain you wish to travel there?” Two buttons appeared, Yes and No. I shook my head at whatever racist programmed it to act like that, and touched yes. There was a surge in space that was no were near as nice as our teleporter, and we disappeared.
We appeared on a teleportation platform in a gazebo within a town filled with mainly wooden buildings. Unlike the last time I came here, most were proper lumber buildings instead of log cabins. The area around the teleporter had over two hundred humans from Anarchist Redoubt, as well as several groups of human mercenaries and Alfs with various types of ranged weapons, from bows to firearms, to rail rifles. I saw Paul in the crowd, and we stepped off in his direction only to be intercepted by Lord Tarn. “Ah, you’re here, Lord Greg. Thank you so much for sending your people. We hired what mercenaries we could locally, but didn’t have the zerka to bring too many in from the home world or colonies.”
“I can loan you the money to hire more if you need me to.” While I wasn’t sure I could justify using the city’s funds for that, I had over seventy five thousand zerka in my personal account I could loan him.
“Oh, no, I don’t believe it will be necessary. With all of the fronts they will be advancing on, we are mainly in the way, and as such it is unlikely that they will focus their attack here. This should be a large enough force that they will go around us.”
I nodded. “In that case, I’d like to introduce you to Diana, a member of my city council. She’s in charge of the education of our citizens, so if you want us to train some of your people in non-military matters, she’s the one to talk to.”
He bowed slightly. “Lady Diana.” She bowed in return. “If I may ask, why did you bring a teacher here?”
“Oh, she also has training in psychology and some medical training, so she’ll be helping with moral and aiding the doctors if needed.”
“We were also together when we got the message that cities were coming under attack, so I volunteered to come along.”
Tarn nodded. “In that case, please follow me. The medical post is on the way to my manor, where the strategy meeting will be taking place.” We started following him and I sent a message to Paul to follow me to the strategy meeting. When we got to the manor it was just me and Tarn, though Paul came up as he was opening the door.
“Lord Tarn,” I said once we stepped inside, “This is Paul, the Captain of my militia. He has extensive military experience, so I asked him to come to the meeting as well.”
“Very well,” he said, turning to a side door. Inside was a large holographic display which showed the lay of the land and all of the trees. He motioned with his hand and the trees disappeared, simple circles in their location. With the trees gone you could see several groups of GCA troops marching nearby. “So far none of them have started coming this way, but they will pass less than three hundred meters north of the village, so if they decide to, they can turn and attack any time they want.”
As we watched, a group of Grilk broke off with their animals and started towards the Fort. “Looks like they decided to do just that.” said Paul, sending a message out to all of our men to get in position on the wall.
As soon as they got within sight of the wall they started sprinting towards it and I heard gunfire outside. The enemies on the map started collapsing, but from further away several other groups rerouted their march in the direction of the settlement.
“Looks like it’s time to fight.” I said and equipped my pistol.
“Unfortunately so.” Tarn said as a fancy staff appeared in his hand. I used Identify on the strange object. “Casting Staff, Tier 5. Used by those focusing on magic to increase their control of their magic. Contains multiple neuroprocessors to rapidly correct the calculations of the wielder, and is capable of storing up to one hundred billion nanites at full charge. Charge: 100000/100000.”
“I need to get me one of those.” I said, following him out of the room.
“One hundred thousand zerka in the shop, but I have a cousin that makes them. I can get you one for only seventy thousand.” That meant that I could probably make one on my own with my nanite forge, forty to fifty thousand in rare minerals, and ten days of wait time. It might be worth it to just buy from him.
“I’ll think about it.” He nodded and lead us to the wall where our people, his people and about two dozen human mercenaries were firing on the enemy.