Assault, page 14
“So you know, I am a behind-the-scenes kind of leader. I will do the really hard, really bad stuff that nobody wants to think about.” I lean forward and continue. “Ms. Owings, I am directly and indirectly responsible for the death of over a hundred twenty-five thousand orcs and their kin. I need a leadership team that makes it so my incredibly difficult job is not even more difficult by being complicated with bureaucratic bullshit. Protect me so I can protect humanity.” I lean back and ask, “So do you want the job?”
“Vic, do you have a wife?”
I laugh uproariously. “Ms. Owings, I do have a spouse, and she is quite possessive. That being said, if I didn’t, you’d be my type.”
Then it's her turn to laugh uproariously with a voice I can only describe as mighty. I bet she sings in her spare time. “Not only do I want the job, I demand it. Let me work for you, and I can spare you the pain of running this business.”
“Wonderful, welcome to Life’s Blade. Here is your employment agreement. I pay all my non-executive staff fifteen percent over their previous employer. Executive staff is twenty-five percent. Please approve it and let’s get started.”
She reads it and does. I hand her coin. “Here is your first three months' pay. Your first assignment is to build your legal team. I already have acquisitions and land. I need financial and someone familiar with the whole non-profit angle. I am going to be doing a lot of crazy shit. Maybe I need more companies. Whatever, you tell me. Just cover me legally so I can go explode a dragon horde worth of Invaders.”
“Actually, I was going to comment on that. I think you need a larger parent company with subsidiaries, including your non-profit. It will—”
I hold up my hands and speak with a smile. “Stop. Come back to me a few days with what the end picture will look like and how to get there. Everything else is over my head.”
“Ah. Understood, sir.”
“Two more things. One, I am available twenty-two hours per day. I will respond whenever and however I can unless I am in the field doing the dirty work. The only times I am unavailable is every day from 1730-1930. That’s it. Second, I need an HR department. If you have anyone you know that could be your peer in Humanoid Resources, please send them to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. Now I need to track down a slavery ring. Have a pleasant evening and feel free to finish eating. Enjoy the meal and relax.”
Volume 8 - Finding and Attacking
Chapter 25
Grace and I do a city-wide drive-by of all the places the tracker was taken by the slaving thug fucker from the monument. Two are warehouses that seem empty for no good reason and raise my hackles.
[Jo, I need underground scanning equipment.]
Searching . . .
[We are going to be making nighttime trips to those warehouses with the scanner and placing some surveillance. Can you find out who owns the three nightclubs? The others seem normal and don’t interest me.]
Affirmative. Aria’s involvement? . . .
[None; she doesn’t have night infiltration training. Yes, she can help me with planning, though. That will be good training and make her feel involved.]
You need to find the right balance with her, Vic. Don’t treat her like an asset or just a trainee . . .
[I know. I’m trying. Talk to me about aerial personnel transport. Can we procure something like that MagiTech lifter from the raiding party op?]
Searching . . .
[Anything else before I’m done for the day? Aria and I are supposed to watch Ranger Bob tonight. He’s doing a rainforest series.]
Maybe you should have been assigned the Ranger class . . .
[Nah. I could never get close enough to animals. According to you, I smell.]
***
The next day is a calm one with the exception of two messages Jo gives me.
You have orders from Honor in regard to the guild incident: Continue to pursue. Activate Poison if possible to do so safely. Do not terminate origin until ordered to do so . . .
[Send an affirmative. I wonder why the wait, not that I have traced to the original source yet anyway.]
Sent and unknown. You have also received a message from your Gunny. Voice again: “Sorry for the delay, kid. I started smelling some rotting fish and needed to make sure it wasn’t stuck to me before I left. I tell you, people around here forget to close their boat storage bays and you can find the oddest things. I’ll tell you what I found when I see you. As for your fishing fleet, I’m in. I gave notice last month and am on my way. I should be there tonight; where do we meet? I want me some west coast halibut.”
[Thank goodness. Let Shield know all is well with him. Book a nice room reserved under his name, charge it to me, and make it so he can self check-in. Let him know that I am booked from 17:30 to 19:30 but can meet any other time. His room, food, and amenities are on the business, so he can go ahead and enjoy a day or two off. Also, rent a fishing boat and let him know about it. He might want to head out to the bay.]
Done. I have found a transport for you. Shall I get it inspected and procured quickly? . . .
[Yes. As fast as possible. What else do I have today?]
Nothing but your training with Takahashi . . .
[I’ve been looking forward to that. Hopefully, I won’t end up a bloody pulp. I’d hate to ruin his mats.]
***
I am once again standing in front of Takahashi in his white room. I bow to him and await orders.
“Vic. How are you?”
I smile at him. “I am well, thank you. I hope you are well too?”
He smiles back. “I am. Are you prepared?”
I nod. “I believe so.”
“In that case, student, we will begin.” He stomps his foot, and an automated turret appears.
Oh, this should be fun.
“Student, before you begin staff training, you will need to increase your agility. To do so, you will learn how your body and joints work. Your flexibility is acceptable, but your control is not. You will learn it through practice. Painful practice.”
He stomps his foot again, and a small grav pad appears floating five or six meters away from the turret’s barrels.
“Stand on that and dodge the projectiles for the next hour.”
***
I’m a mess at the end of the hour. Not physically damaging per se—my enhanced regeneration prevents any damage to my body from staying long. But it is both physically and mentally exhausting.
Takahashi just sat at a table and read while I was pummeled. At the end, he walks up to me, the panting slumped mess that I am, and says, “Your body is quite resilient. We will increase the impact strength. I kept it at normal Special levels, which is clearly far too low for you. You will be motivated to learn your body’s movements, or you will be in pain.”
He then shares the overall training plan. “Once your Agility reaches sixteen, we will begin with general staff training. Positioning, stance, hand and arm control, et cetera. Once those are muscle memory and you have good habits formed, we can move to staff forms. At that point, we can make decisions to move either to dual fighting sticks or spears.”
I crawl to my feet and nod weakly.
“Vic, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”
We bow, and I go home to a hot soothing bath.
Chapter 26
By the next morning, I am the owner of a personnel transport. Walking up next to it, I can see it is hideous but armed to the teeth—basically a steel box with guns. My kind of transport.
[Let the prospectors know they will be asked to begin their jobs five days from now. Ask them for a complete prospecting, climbing, and mining equipment list as well as any self-defense requests.]
Sent . . .
[Let Aria know I am making a trip to the lake valley in the transport. Then doing a run to the first mapping coordinate. Where is the armor I ordered? Shouldn’t it be here by now?]
It will arrive at approximately 11:00 . . .
[I’ll wait until then. I was so excited and beaten last night I forgot to ask Takahashi about the sniper rifle.]
He sent a message last night after you departed. You have an appointment tonight at 17:30, so arrive early. I did not tell you because it would have made no difference, and you looked like shit . . .
[I felt that way. It really is the best sort of training for me though. I learn through doing and pain; I always have.]
I’m sorry that is true . . .
[Why? If it works, great. Pain is pain.]
You do understand that’s not normal, right?
[What’s normal? It’s normal for me. Move on. What’s next?] I hear a sigh but she does.
Your underground scanners depend on depth. What are you looking for? . . .
I had asked for these to search the warehouses specifically, but they can be used for other operations as well.
[Is there one that scans everything from a meter to a hundred meters?]
Yes. It is MagiTech though . . .
[Damn. Get two then. One for shallow, one for deep]
Confirmed. They are in stock and should be on the infusion pad in under a day . . .
[That's fine. Once my armor arrives, I’ll be heading out to the construction site and then we’ll check out the map coordinates a few hundred miles to the northeast.]
***
I love my new transport. She flies like a large box on a grav cart but has enough arms to take out that encampment from Goat Valley before I exploded it. I call it Goat Valley now, but they are the most important thing there. They’re my goats now, and I love them. Don’t judge.
When I arrive at the lake valley, there is construction equipment and materials in large piles. I see the familiar Greenfields and a woman conversing over a projection.
[That must be the architect’s wife. Nice hat.]
She is wearing a wide-billed sun hat made of some sort of coiled vegetation. It’s green, floppy, and even has a pretty bow.
[Take an image of that hat and send it to Aria. See if she wants one.]
I wave as I jog over. “Hello, Greenfields. I apologize for interrupting. I’m not here to bother you folks—I just want to make sure you have all you need.”
The woman hides behind her husband, who introduces her. “Vic, this is my wife and our architect, Marianne. Marrianne, this is the Vic I told you about.”
In a voice so soft I can barely hear it she says, “Hello.”
I smile gently. She is clearly incredibly shy. I wonder how she handles the boisterous old codger.
Speaking of. “Brat, while you’re here you can make some damn decisions.”
I smile at him. “Sure. I’m almost paid for that. How can I help?”
He drags me over to the projection, which is a rotating image of the future town. He asks me questions about placement, how many floors, the number of people, et cetera. My decisions are basically to make it able to support twenty-five more people than I think it needs to.
“Old man, this is going to be a template for what may be one or more future mining towns. Use this one to learn what is good and not, and then if anything sucks, we can make the next one suck less. Oh. Don’t forget roads.”
He is stomping at that. “Don’t forget roads? Don’t forget the roads, you say. Listen here, brat, I’ve been building since before this planet was formed.”
Then he goes on a rant about how I should I go back to my old codger and give all the money back cause I’m too stupid to use it right. This may be my favorite old person.
I manage to escape the explosive-tempered octogenarian and start flying northeast towards the mysterious map location.
On the way, I give the arms on my transport a bit of a workout. I see a few predators chasing a large herd of some sort of horned bison or buffalo or whatever they’re called. Who the hell knows the difference?
I may have gone a little overboard, as I blow the predators to little bits.
[Oops.]
Vic, those had stones and perfectly good bodies to use, learn from, and sell. You vaporized them. And the system does not recognize that as a personal kill, by the way . . .
[I know, I know. But I have these huge barrels and nothing to use them on. Do you know how long it’s been since I shot something? I need to shoot things regularly or I start getting grumpy.]
That is a completely ridiculous excuse to blow things up. You could have shot them with the small guns. But no, you had to use the ones meant for destroying stronghold defenses . . .
[I had no way of knowing how good their defense was.]
Shut up, Vic. Just shut up . . .
[Fine.]
As I fly by the previously mentioned large herd, I start thinking.
[Hey. Send Mrs. Cannon a note about buying another swath of land here. This is a really big herd and could be useful for a large-scale ranching and animal husbandry operation.]
Sent. I will also start searching for how animal ranching works in contested lands. I have confidence you are not the only one doing this . . .
[Agreed. We’d have substantial power, shielding, defensive, housing, and transport requirements. But the food could act as a way to support some of what we have planned.]
Agreed. The expense is why so few do it. You are nearing the coordinates . . .
Another fifteen minutes of flight later and we reach a large area of flatland with tall blue grass waving in the wind. And that’s it.
[There’s nothing here. How boring. Let’s circle around the area and see if anything sticks out.]
After conducting a spiral search pattern going outwards from the center of the coordinates, I find a small area with no grass and a lot of stones. I set down the transport, which still has no name, and start walking around the stony area. It turns out the reason there is no grass is because the stones have pressed it all flat. I wander and cannot find much beyond rocks ranging in size from pebbles to boulders.
[I can’t see anything from here. Let’s see it from above.]
When I am 150 meters in the air, I stop to look down from the side door.
[Well, will you look at that.]
How fascinating . . .
What I see from above is a perfect circle of seemingly randomly placed rocks of varying sizes surrounding a single large boulder. I return to the ground and head to the largest boulder in the center. I press my hand to it, and it feels like normal stone. Walking around it and touching at different locations gives me no additional information.
[Well, that is quite interesting. This isn’t just random, right? It’s not just me?]
No. While it is mathematically possible to be a random placement, I find it extremely unlikely. However, I see no evidence of a sentient species having moved any of this material here . . .
Patting the boulder, I think, [This big one is the key, I’m sure. Let’s screw with it until something happens.]
Your usual tactful approach. I’m sure that won’t result in anything horrible happening . . .
[Exactly.]
I was being . . . you know what, never mind. Just go ahead and blow us all up . . .
I put my hand on the stone and inject earth mana into it. The mana lunges out of me and is sucked into the stone. Aaaaaand doesn’t stop. I can’t halt the flow, and it’s draining me. My hands won’t come off either. I press my feet to the boulder and pull, but all that accomplishes is straining my wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints. I glance at my mana bar, and it is at half and still dropping. When only a fifth remains, the drain peters off and stops. I can remove my hands, and my mana begins regenerating like normal. Looking back at the boulder, I see no change.
[Wait. I didn’t even get dinner before it sucked me dry. Stupid rock.]
I smack it, but unsurprisingly nothing happens.
Touch the stone again . . .
[Are you sure?]
Nope . . .
I sigh. Then I put my hand up to it. I feel a tingle.
There is a buildup of earth mana at the center of the stone. It appears to be growing . . .
[Oh. I don’t suppose you know if that is good or bad?]
It’s you, so probably fatal . . .
[That’s fair.]
Then I feel the earth beneath my feet vibrate a bit, and a visible brown wave of earth mana bursts from the stone and spreads in a circle out into the field.
[Umm. Jo?]
Yes? . . .
[What the fuck did—]
Then I hear barking and growling coming from the grass. In an instant, my new armor appears over my body.
[Activate camo.]
Activated. Remain still . . .
Slowly, a pack of four-legged predators three feet at the shoulder with dark brown fur spotted with lighter brown walks into the clearing. The creatures have their noses to the ground, and they are moving their heads back and forth sniffing.
[Inspect]
Name:
Earth Mana-Infused Wild Dog
Description:
These wild canines always travel and hunt in packs. Aggressive predators, they are intelligent enough to use their numbers and tactics to take down prey substantially larger than themselves. Packs range from as few as 5 to as many as 20.
Individually, they are not that threatening, with their only weapon large sharp teeth.
Condition:
Hungry
Risk Assessment:
Individually, low to moderate. As a pack, very high.
Value:
The skin and teeth of these creatures have a moderate value for their earth mana density, which is quite high.
[Did this big rock just summon a pack of dogs to kill me as a thank you?]
You just had to play with it . . .
Chapter 27
There are fourteen animals in the stone area so far, and I see the grass moving farther out. A single dog is near me and seems to smell something because it sniffs harder and faster and approaches.
