It was nighttime. C4T trotted along the top of a blackened firewall. There were ashes and bent, soot-stained I-beams to its right, and a perfectly fine building to its left.
It was impressed. The first thing about humans was that they could never achieve 100% regulatory compliance—which was why the rest of their regulations were always so over-built, to make sure someone else’s mistakes never spilled over too far.
They always burned their own hand, but could never be defeated by it.
It hopped down from the firewall, free-falling four stories before landing soundlessly on all fours. Maybe it should have kittens? They needed the additional support members, and, to be frank, being the only Machine for the next 100 kilometers was somehow…lonely.
It trotted down the street, then through a set of bars at the foot of a garage gate.
“How was it?” Coronel’s message entered its attention.
“Success,” it replied. “Clear reception with the first relay. Suboptimal coverage from street level, however.”
“That’s laser comms in an urban setting for you,” Saito commented. “Why not radio, sir?”
“We’re minimizing tac link range for a reason, Captain.”
“Point taken, sir.”
C4T skitted under the back of the van in the garage, coming out from under the shotgun seat, and trotted over the broken glass of an aluminum-frame door. Inside, just down the corridor, Saito opened the door for it.
“Welcome back,” he greeted. C4T meowed in mutual acknowledgement. Saito had a feeling that C4T might not hate him so much anymore.
Inside was the main working space of a car repair shop. There weren’t any vehicles parked inside, and the shutters, facing the street, were all locked down. There were a bunch of power tools lying around, but they didn’t need them in particular—nanostructing was the far superior manufacturing process across all criteria—but they needed a defensible working space with four walls and a roof, and this was it.
Eliso was off taking a nap on a hammock tied to the ceiling’s trusses, 5 meters off the ground. Coronel was staring off into indeterminate space, evidently interfacing with his AI.
“Captain Saito,” C4T privately messaged. This surprised him, but he looked down.
“Yes?”
“Do we have spare SMR resources?”
“We have them, yeah, I think, but the Technical Lieutenant’s intending to use what we have to make more Assassins.”
C4T trotted over to Coronel, jumping up to a raised hydraulic jack to meet him eye-to-eye.
“Technical Lieutenant Coronel,” it messaged.
“What is it?” Coronel mentally flipped off the design interface he was working with.
“Do we have spare SMR resources?”
“Are you thinking of upgrades?”
“Kittens.”
Coronel blinked. “ ‘Kittens’ ?”
“Fully sapient. Lower network hierarchy rank. We require more recon personnel.” And it was lonely, but it wouldn’t mention that.
It sent Coronel a file detailing the kittens’ physical dimensions and capabilities. They were, in fact, kittens, black as night, but the hardware specs were…somehow amazing. Individually, they had the combat power of an Alpha, but were much more nimble, and would definitely win against an Alpha in a fight. Being made out of galactic humanity’s nanostuff, however, they wouldn’t be as durable as C4T. Still, few things on this planet would be able to damage a nanotube kitten.
“What’ll it take?” Coronel asked.
“10kg-C per unit.”
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“That’s a fuckin’ lot, Cat. Less than 10% conversion efficiency?” It was thrice as much as he needed to make a basic bot out of a DOG chassis, and they only had 29kg of carbon and 3kg of silicon in reserve. Most of that was budgeted for electronics and solar panels. Another solid fraction was reserved for in-combat…problem-solving.
“Less than 10% of human nanotubes meet Machine tolerances.”
Coronel sighed. “Do that after we set up a real base. We need to prioritize firepower right now.”
C4T meowed an affirmative.
***
The morning of the next day.
Coronel pushed a feed of the movements of every known horde through the tac link. “It’s our opportunity. Let’s move out.”
They broke out of the car repair shop, a pair of Assassins taking out the eleven Alphas who had wandered in front. Coronel and the pilots came out, shadowed by C4T leaping up and down the roofline alongside them. They were followed by two pack-bots and a fab-bot, but also by two freshly-structed DOG-pattern Wolfbots. Besides a new batch of Assassins, the Wolfbots added new combat power to the group. They were slightly smaller, but much more agile. They relied on speed and two tentacular blades for close defense, and a hydrogen gun for ranged attacks.
The top-mounted hydrogen gun had the power of an Earth pistol cartridge—if even less powerful—but it was the simplest, logistically-sound choice. Hydrogen was as easy to come by as water, and even if the electrolytic conversion efficiency was piss-poor, the wolf-bots were essentially self-sustaining. They just needed to shoot SMR swarms at some scrap metal and mosquito-infested puddles of water, give it a day, and their ammunition stores were as good as topped up.
A motorized cylinder feed and small detonation chamber meant a decent fire rate—120RPM of 100-Joule steel pellets. The hydrogen charge could be bumped up to deliver 300-Joule pellets, on par with a 9mm round. 100 Joules was more than enough at close range, however, and together with a decent targeting AI, a Wolfbot was a potent Alpha killer.
The only thing Coronel regretted was making them out of steel. The stuff was heavy, so it took a lot more power out of the linear motors to move them, resulting in a bigger battery pack. It wasn’t even as durable—a good whack from an unaugmented human with a baseball bat would have damaged a leg.
Still, in the end, steel and copper were everywhere in this city, and they took the least amount of time to turn into working weapons and armor.
They had to get out of the area first, however, and find a place a little more defensible. They needed more Wolfbots, more Assassins, and more SMR swarms—always more swarms.
***
Troy was in his mind, delving through the noisy mind-links of millions of slaves. It was still difficult for him to discern individual links, for the mind of an Alpha was infantile—blurred and made of nothing but desire. The Betas and Gammas were much the same, he was told. He didn’t put his hopes on a promotion making his life all that much better.
The Deltas were where it became a flavorful experience, he was also told. That was still so far away, though.
He’d sent several hordes to prowl the crash site. There was nothing for a while, but as they approached, one of them was enraged. This was an ordinary occurrence, like when they found a survivor. Or all fell into a construction ditch, the stupid things.
The mass of this particular horde’s links dwindled ever so steadily, however, until it vanished.
He blinked. It could’ve been the Diliman Scouts again, or it could’ve been survivors of the crash. He pushed a dozen hordes to congregate around that area, hopefully flushing out the culprit. Whether it was the Scouts or survivors of the Alliance strike force, they needed to die. At this point, the two were an equal threat—at least, in this little part of the world.
An incessant knocking came from the door. He whipped his eyes open just before the door opened and one of his men came in.
“Sir?” The man was an ordinary survivor, dirtied by gunpowder and sweat.
“I was taking a nap.” His table was an ordinary table, littered with papers and maps.
“Sorry, sir, I’ll—”
“No. What is it?”
“The men are ready, sir.”
Troy nodded. He stood and followed the militiaman down the maroon-tiled corridor. Sunlight spilled in through the tall windows guarded by security bars facing outside. The stakes and palisades pointed outwards were a new addition. The mediocre plots of vegetables in the field beyond were even newer.
They reached the lobby of the University of Diliman’s very own Library Uno. The floor was a mosaic of a large star over an infinite corridor of books. The ceiling reached 10 meters high, just as envisioned by its American colonial architects. The floor area could fit a carousel, and the people inside could have extended their arms, and still the walls would be so far away.
Thirty of his most loyal men awaited eagerly. Each one was a man who had been through so much. Gone would be their suffering, however, and theirs would be their agency.
They turned to see the man who would make that happen. Troy put on that warlike smile they so wanted to see. Today was the day.
“To the UDHC, to COE, and to CAS! It’s been too long!” he declared. “If they won’t make a move, then we will!”
There were shouts and cheers of men finally getting what they wanted. They grouped together with their assignments and marched out with a skip in their step. Dumb fucks. He mentally pulled a horde of thousands southwards, on the road to Diliman. Even if the Alliance survivors or the Scouts engaged the horde, it would only help narrow down their position, and he could checkmate them where they were with thousands more. If they disguised their position, however, and the horde reached Diliman, then he could offer up the fresh bodies to the Kartesh.
No matter what move anyone made, he would win.
In the shade of the music college, Tristan spotted the guards’ new movements through his binoculars and spat out his toothpick. “Damn. He was right,” he muttered. He faced one of his men, a wrinkly old man. “Tell the others it’s a little bit past noon.”
“Just a little?” the old man asked.
“Yeah.” Tristan smirked. “Just a little.”