There was no status quo. Three splashes of Lanan light infantry in a short space of time would not go unnoticed in the Kartesian Ocean. The local threat level was escalated, and new bounties were already posted to dispatch the growing Alliance presence in Metro Manila.

Coronel knew this, and he was no stranger to it. The problem was, this time, he wasn’t alone. As much as he was tempted to fight a forever war that was apt to incinerate this part of the world in nuclear fire, there were possibly tens of thousands of people still alive here. Taking out a hundred Lanan per year was worth very little compared to killing off all those people in collateral exchange.

Kartesian reprisal could take 24 hours to a week to come, and it could be a squad of light infantry or a platoon of force reconnaisance. Either way, Coronel had almost no time to make adequate preparations. Even if, with the cooperation of local survivors, they could take out the reprisal force, the Kartesh would just send an even bigger force in turn, while the Alliance would still be reeling from its losses.

The best strategy would be to bog down enemy forces, preventing them from justifying requisitioning reinforcements, thereby allowing the Alliance to build up forces in secret.

The keyword here was “secret.”

Building up more silicon hamlets like what had just been destroyed was a no-go. Such constructs could be hidden at small scale, but to build a force powerful enough to stand up to the Kartesh, the whole city would have to be gray goo’ed. Still, the standard bots were useful, and Coronel had sent out most of the remaining bots to scatter and build new hamlets in the meantime.

Moving forward, they would have to rely on K-type automata for the bulk of their fighting power, never-minding the whole philosophical and existential mess that was wondering if digital copies of consciousnesses were all just the same individual.

Coronel’s own philosophy with such things was “as long as it gets the job done.”

For now, he had to rendezvous with his men and the scouts. Status updates from the laser network showed him everyone in fucked condition. Saito and Eliso were going to be fine, the nanotech in their blood having already patched up most of their wounds, but the scouts weren’t so lucky. Most of them stayed down, and the ones who could stand were bleeding in too many places.

He spurred his robotic mount to move faster, trampling over Alphas and caving in the roofs of sedans. Accompanying him were the Sabers, Wolves, and Bernards, and further behind was a detachment of Bernards, Wolves, and Tenprints. Ahead, he’d sent up recon drones to assess the general surroundings.

They reached the memorial park. Aurelia had been tending to James, but she tensed up as she saw a small horde of robots approaching. She calmed down after Saito and Eliso flagged the pack down, and Coronel came into sight soon after.

“Get the FAKs from the packbots,” Coronel said. “And where’s C4T?”

“Haven’t seen it,” Saito answered before he and Eliso rushed over to the packbots.

The FAKs they produced were more like assault rifles with helical magazines. With reckless aim, they fired small capsules at each of the scouts, which each burst in mid-air before the spray of SMRs hit the scouts and helped themselves through the pores in their skin, getting to work repairing damaged tissue and expelling fluids through medical tubes built inside-out from their very bodies.

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Aurelia couldn’t help but watch her friends get medically shot, and then groan and wince in pain for a moment before the anesthetics went into effect. In her arms, James was coughing up blood mixed with stuff that looked like it came from an IV. She looked to Eliso, but he didn’t seem at all concerned about it. He noticed her gaze.

“They’ll be fine,” he said. That was half a lie, as they were all in various states of dying, but the FAKs were potent. He was confident of the bigger chance of everyone pulling through—in various states of crippled, admittedly.

Coronel’s horse kneeled, and he climbed off. Aurelia’s eyes widened as he approached her. Her muscles tensed, and her heart rate soared. Coronel’s augmented senses caught all of this, and for a moment, he thought she was going to attack him. He stopped, readying himself for a close fight.

But it never came. He examined Aurelia further, and there was something else there, he noticed. A light of reason.

“We don’t have time,” he said. “The Kartesh are going to send even bigger forces.”

“It’s all your fucking fault,” Aurelia said. James stirred in her arms.

Coronel narrowed his eyes. “Thousands of men died in the vacuum of space to keep the reaper fleet from reaching this rock. You would have all been dead a long time ago.”

Aurelia looked back down at James. The anger in her was still there, but…there was just so much she didn’t know, apparently.

She looked in a particular direction. “Diliman’s that way.”

Coronel already knew that. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you—”

“There’s a horde there right now”—information he’d gleaned from aerial recon—“estimated 10,042 individuals, mostly Alphas, but there are Betas. Probable casualties among the survivors.”

“A horde?…” Isn’t that too fast? Isn’t today too fast?

Coronel turned away. “Saito, Eliso, secure a safehouse for our allies to recover and assign them a guard detail. Right away.”

“Yes, sir.” “Sir.”

He looked back to Aurelia. “There’s no time. I don’t know how you’re cut off from the Ocean’s control, but you should be able to take out at least 10% of the enemy forces.”

She hadn’t even processed that part yet. She vaguely remembered yesterday—all a blur, really—and then wanting to eat meat, zombie meat of all things. She’d…eaten a human being. A former human being, but, still, what had she become?

Then she came to, and there was a bloodied arm in her hands and a chunk of meat in her mouth, but she felt no revulsion to it. Then she saw the others and their shock, then there was a real shockwave, then a lot of pain, but the pain went away after a while.

She knew she’d become strong, somehow, like she could actually take on hundreds of zombies at once like Coronel said. She’d never felt better, but…also never more confused than now.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t notice Coronel walk up to her. She recoiled backwards when she’d blinked, seeing a cylinder offered to her from Coronel’s hand.

“W-what’s that?” she asked.

“A weapon. If you’re going to fight as an ally, I would rather you survive.”

“But, what if—”

“I don’t care right now.” He pushed the cylinder into her hands. “You were a survivor. As of now, you are a soldier. We kill.”

He pushed a button on the cylinder and stepped away as it disintegrated into an SMR swarm. It circled around Aurelia before its constituents cold-welded with each other, forming gauntlets and a straight-bladed sword.

Although he trusted her enough to arm her, he wouldn’t arm her with a gun, at least not until they understood why she was able to reject the control of the Ocean.

Eliso came over and put a hand on James. Aurelia looked to him. “We’re hoisting him up, now,” he said. She nodded, and Eliso took him away to the base of the monument, where a winch hoisted up an improvised stretcher into the mausoleum on top.

It might have been disrespectful to the dead, but surely, they wouldn’t mind if it’s just for a while.

As soon as the last of the recovering scouts were safely tucked away in the mausoleum, guarded by two Sabers and three Wolves, Aurelia, Saito, and Eliso each mounted a Saber, and Coronel led the way to Diliman.

Just to be sure, Coronel checked on the laser network again for any pending transfers. A message from C4T caught his attention.

“Kartesian signal emanating from area-of-interest: Diliman. Investigating.”

Saito and Eliso caught wind of this, as well.

“It didn’t bother to tell either of us?”

“Cats go wherever the fuck they want, I guess.”