Alan walked up to the bedside. It was in a room similar to the one he had awakened in right after the bombing of his cavern. The short Saru lay there on the bed, immobile. His breathing was labored. Most of his left leg was missing along with his lower right below the knee. Purple blood soaked stacked bandages on his head, the stumps of his legs and arm, and left side of his chest.

Tubes and wires attached to all kinds of places on his body. Alan could only imagine he looked similar when he was on one of these beds. Naju was among the few fighting Saru Alan had seen here that didn’t have any cybernetics yet.

Alan felt a twinge of guilt rise up in him. Was this his fault? It was his creation of the Saber Cat that he had nearly been killed in? Or was it his lack of experience and training to command troops to fight a war that lead to this? How many more Saru would suffer and die because of him?

Naju just stared upward at the ceiling.

“Naju?” Alan whispered.

“Alan? I didn’t ask for you to come.” He groaned in pain. “Just asked Heapa to tell you some things.”

“He told us that you came back seriously hurt and five of your team were killed. He also said that that Ustobo changed how they fight again.”

Naju coughed. “I guess I should have sent a recording.”

“I haven’t seen the video logs yet. Is there anything you need to tell me that those videos might not show?”

“When we found the Ustobo they acted helpless. Everything about it felt wrong. We didn’t dare leave them to escape though. I think the spider things were already up in the trees. We didn’t see them... until it was too late.” More coughing ensued.

Father’s voice came over the room intercom. “Please, he is in great pain and I need to get started.”

Alan nodded. “We’ll see you soon, Naju.”

Naju gave him a weak thumbs up with his right hand before it went limp.

Sara and Alan backed away as hundreds of tentacles emerged from the ceiling, bed and walls. Alan watched initially horrified. As the work continued the initial shock gave way to fascination as all the tentacles did injections, cutting, pulling, draining, and god knows what else.

Eventually Sara gently tugged at his arm to lead him out of the room. “Come on. Father’s going to be working on him for several hours. Unless you’ve taken up surgical studies in your spare time... I’m thinking you have other things to do.”

“Yeah.” Alan stepped aside from the door and leaned against the wall outside the surgical room. “Giving them the new Saber Cat wasn’t enough. They need more diversity.” Alan stared at the wall opposite of him. “They need tactics to be able to employ. God, how the hell am I supposed to help them with that?!”

“So you’re not trained in troop deployments. Use the skills you have. Engineer it.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It’s a problem that needs analytical planning. You look at their strengths and weakness and match them up against ours. Determine how to use our strengths in a way that will cause theirs to fail. It sounds similar like an engineering problem to me.”

She made it sound so simple. Maybe he was making a mountain out of a dirt pile? Naw, it couldn’t be that easy. Battlefield commanders studied for years and ran simulations and... simulations. Could that be the answer to learn quickly? Maybe, just maybe. Something about how the Saru fought troubled him. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it. They did what they were told to do, almost to a fault. Something was wrong with how they did it though.

Sara kissed him on the cheek.

His thoughts derailed and crashed.

Sara laughed. “Well, I now know how to break you out of your trance like state.”

Alan smiled, “Ha ha.”

The two of them retrieved the video logs from the latest patrols before heading back to the shop where his mobile base was deployed. Alan took a seat at the holoprojector table and started loading up the videos.

Sara went to get them something to eat while they watched. “You know,” she said, “given we are the only two humans, and we only have each other for company, perhaps you should modify the sleeping quarters so we can share a room together.”

Alan stopped everything he was doing. His mind raced at what she was getting at. He could feel the tension building in his body at the thought of it. His mind went to work on how he could make it happen.

“No response to that?”

Alan smiled. He did his best to keep his voice sounding distracted or not all there. “I’ll put it on the list.” He heard her mutter something that sounded like disappointment to him.

She came back with a tray of snack like foods and ungracefully plopped his down on the side table next to his chair. She dropped herself into one of the other observation chairs and put her feet up on the holoprojector. She stared at him with a look of disapproval as she popped nuggets of food into her mouth.

“Ready to start?” Alan tried not to look at her.

“I guess.”

They watched the videos of the attack and the resulting ambush that was clearly planned.

“I don’t get it. If they knew something was wrong, why did they keep going? Why wouldn’t they pull back and circle around or something?”

Sara had taken more interest in what was happening. Five Saru had died in this encounter. “It doesn’t make sense to me either.”

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Alan got a thought. “How many drones could a pilot handle using the combat modules we installed into all the mechas?”

“Five tops. Four would be more manageable. Why? What do you have in mind?”

Alan leaned back. “I’m thinking of how the Ustobo always have a carrier of troops with them to increase their numbers in a fight. Smaller and harder to hit. We could do the same kind of thing with drones. Each mecha could control, say four, and be a kind of spearhead in a fight. That might save more of their lives. It’s something we could implement now to help them. They just need to be trained to use the drones.”

“That I think has a good success rate to it. Good idea.”

“Could you train them while I work out the equipment modifications?”

She looked a little put off. “I guess I am better at that sort of thing than you are. You can’t even seem to take a hint.”

Alan was confused by the comment. Sara finished her meal and left the mobile base without saying another word.

As soon as she was gone, Alan pinged the crew chief that worked on the mobile base and asked him to come over. He worked out the modifications needed before the Saru arrived.

When the crew chief arrived, Alan explained what needed to be done and that it needed to be done as fast as possible. The white furry creature couldn’t understand why he should pull all the Saru he had working for him to do this in such a short time. Alan did as best he could to discreetly appeal to the creature base nature of needs.

The crew chief just looked at him with a curious look before busting up laughing. He then turned and ran out of the mobile base, laughing every step of the way. Alan wasn’t sure if he was going to do as he was asked or go run to tell Sara. Whichever it was, he would have to deal with it later. There were other more serious modifications to be done.

Late into the evening Sara returned to the mobile base. She looked exhausted. He wasn’t even sure how that was supposed to work given her body.

His mind had been distracted all afternoon making it hard for him to finish what he needed to get done for the day.

She came and leaned up against the workbench were he was working on some servo motor. “Remember this morning when we were talking about not being able to understand why they went ahead into that fight? Even though they knew it was probably an ambush?”

“Yes. I still don’t have an answer for that.”

“After trying to train them all afternoon, I think I do.”

Alan put down what he was working on and turned to give her his full attention.

“Father has apparently always told them WHAT to do, never WHY. They do as they are told and have become conditioned to just doing it without thinking for themselves. They don’t fully know or understand why they do what they do. They just know that the Ustobo are bad and Father will tell them what to do next. Until now.”

The reality of what she said sank in and hit hard. A number of things suddenly made sense. “That’s... not good. Not even remotely good. They’ve essentially been dumbed down to little organic drones by Father?”

“That’s a pretty disheartening way to put it, but yeah.”

“I’m not sure if things can get much worse.”

“Surely we’ll hit a point that it can only get better, right?”

“God, I hope so.”

She moved closer to him. “I’m spent after trying to teach furry creatures to think on their own. I’m going to bed.” She kissed him on the forehead.

He stood up and embraced her, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “I’m done working for the night myself. I’ll come with you.”

“Seriously, you need to get a bedroom built for us.”

“I know,” Alan smiled at her.

She gave him a quizzical look.

Alan walked with her to the area where the sleeping quarters were. She stopped at the first door that was hers and turned to go in.

“Where are you going?”

“Where does it look like I’m going?”

Alan grinned. “For now your room is at that door.” He pointed at the door on the other side of the hallway. The door had the word closet still stenciled on it.

“Seriously! You’re going to have me stay in the closet! You started remodeling a bedroom for us and tore up my room already?” She pulled his hands away from her. “I don’t find that funny. Maybe you should sleep in the closet and I’ll sleep in your room.”

Alan was trying not to laugh. “If you insist.” Alan moved to the door and opened it up so she would see inside.

She grinned and pointed a finger at the doorway. “I got into that closet just this morning!”

“You’ve been on my mind all day. I had to do something about it.”

She stepped into the room and looked around and took a deep breath in through her nose. The room had a faint fragrant smell of fresh cut wood mixed with a pleasant aroma flowers. Warm wood covered the floors and walls in stark contrast to the cold steel just outside. Soft lighting added to the warmth and cozy feel.

The large bed was also framed in wood, firmly attached to the floor and wall. Drawers made up the base of the bed. What looked like hand crafted wooden end tables were on either side of the bed. A large hand made wooden dresser completed the matching set of furnishings. To Sara the room felt like a room of some luxurious retreat location.

Alan watched her closely as she looked at all the room. “Well, how do you like it?”

She looked to be near tears. She turned and looked at him with a coy smile. She reached out with both hands and grabbed him by the shirt. With a force that caught Alan off guard, she yanked him into the room and cast him onto the bed, nearly tearing his shirt apart in the process.

She closed and locked the door. Alan found out that night that Sara could pass as a real woman in every aspect a normal woman could be. They gave their lives to each other, grateful they could even have such intimacy.

As he lay there late in the darkness, his arm wrapped around the naked sleeping woman that he had come to love. Alan made vow in his mind to meet with Father the next day and thank him for what he had done for them both. The world seemed less bleak. There was something more solid in his life to live for.

He gently kissed her forehead before closing his eyes to try and sleep. Hopefully he would be able to focus tomorrow.