“I think we’ve been operating aimlessly for too long.” Dan stood, addressing Abe, Sam, Jennifer, and William in the boardroom of the Viceroy’s Pride. “It’s been brought to my attention that these last couple of months, we’ve been ‘running around like headless chickens’ and I’d like to try and bring some organization to this chaos.” Dan nodded toward William, who gave him a thumbs up, beaming at being quoted.
“Does that explain why I’m the one standing in front of a dry erase board with a marker?” Abe asked from the other end of the room.
“No,” Jennifer interjected before Dan could take control of the meeting. “That’s because you’re in charge of HR. We need someone to draw up an org chart for this ratswamp of an organization.”
“As I was saying!” Dan spoke louder, projecting his voice over the others in the room. “Right now, we’re in a state of chaos, simply reacting to what’s happening around us. Half the time, we’re going into battle with little to no intelligence. If we plan on living through this entire mess, that’s going to have to change.”
“Are you seriously going to make me draw an org chart?” Abe groused, staring dubiously at the dry erase marker he was holding.
“Yes,” Dan replied, rolling his eyes. “I am. Right now, everyone knows everyone else in the company. But, as we expand, that isn’t going to be the case anymore. When we’re in the middle of combat, we need our recruits to know who they should be listening to. That means at least some sort of rudimentary chain of command. Unfortunately for you, Abe, you’re the one in this room with the most knowledge of how to make a midsized unit operational.”
“Come on,” Abe pointed the marker at William petulantly. “General Finch ran the entirety of the American invasion of Indonesia. That’s gotta mean more than my background as a noncom.”
Dan shrugged. “Honestly? For our purposes, no. If we can put together a literal army, I’ll probably put William in charge of it, but right now, we’re looking for more modest expansion. It sounds to me like you and the defectors from Bowman are probably our best bet on that front.
“I’m envisioning this meeting as having two major purposes,” Dan continued, pointedly ignoring Abe’s grumbling. “We need to sort out what the goals for our company are in the short, mid, and long-term. Then, I want us to lay out what we need to do to get there.”
“Whatever happened to just killing monsters and getting paid for it? I was having a lot of fun with that plan,” Abe grumbled as he wrote the word ‘Goals’ on the whiteboard.
“People got killed unnecessarily because we put ourselves in a position where we had to take orders from people who didn’t know what they were doing,” Dan replied drily. “One of our major overarching goals at all levels is autonomy. We have a goddamn spaceship and a self-sustaining space station. It’s going to be a while before we have enough people that simply packing them up and flying off into space isn’t an option.”
Dan nodded at Abe as the other man wrote “freedom” on the whiteboard and circled it. “Now,” he turned back to everyone else. “This is going to seem a bit optimistic, but I think our main goal should be uniting humanity.
“That doesn’t mean us taking over,” Dan raised his voice to speak over the murmuring that filled the room. “It might be finding someone like Mayor DuBlanc that seems like a decent goddamn human being who didn’t try to take advantage of this entire mess, and putting them in charge. Ideally, it would mean some sort of democracy once we find a way to excise enough of the oligarchy to make that word mean something once again. The last year or so should be enough to prove that if we aren’t united, we’re going to be prey.
“Short term?” He continued waiving off their questions with an upraised hand. “That means building the organization. We need more people, more firepower, and more mana for our troops. We’ve already started expanding, but we’re still small fries. This could mean raiding depots or army bases, it could mean recruitment, and it could mean performing missions in exchange for more military equipment.”
Dan motioned at Abe to keep writing. “Once we’ve expanded, our goal is to clear the Orakh out. We definitely need to get them out of America, but I’d like to kick them all off the planet. Given the high number of Orakh we saw after they’d been in the bayou for a relatively short period of time, combined with the breeding chamber I found on their spaceship, I think it’s fair to suspect that their growth is logarithmic if unchecked. That means we need to get rid of them as soon as possible. Otherwise, they might be able to overwhelm us with sheer weight of numbers.”
“The floor is open for questions and ideas.” Dan sat down. For a second, no one did anything. Then Sam stood up hesitantly.
“I don’t know about the rest of the plan,” she said. “I have some ideas on expanding our forces. I know that Ibis was in contact with Anderson Drummond. He was a fairly prominent name in Silicon Valley, and he was the source of the medical nanites we turned into the System. As far as I can tell, he’s one of the corporate warlords that took over California. Him and Peter Best, the online shopping and logistics kingpin, have been too busy fighting over California for anyone to pay too close attention to them.”
“I think Best made most of the equipment used in the powered armor,” she continued, shrugging slightly. “As far as I can tell from twitter, his troops have used powered armor to push Drummond out of Southern California. The army is mostly staying out of it, but by this point, most local leaders have thrown in with one side or another. I know they’re fairly big fish for right now, but if we could seize either of their manufacturing capacity, it’d really help our ability to field combat-capable troops.”
Sam smiled slightly. “Until then, that gauntlet you seized from the Orakh chief gave me some ideas. Even if we can’t give every recruit the System, that doesn’t mean that they can’t use mana. We can look into runescripting them with simple enhancement runes, but we can also try to integrate the Orakh discharge rune. It should work as a tattoo. It’ll consume most of its user’s mana in one blast, but it’s better than nothing. It’s not as good as proper magic users, but it’ll let us field teams of soldiers that are faster, stronger, better-armed and more resilient than their non-magical counterparts without the help of expensive prerequisites, such as the System.”
“More or less the class tattoos from Twilight, then.” Dan nodded thoughtfully. “That could work. It’s obviously not as good as the System, but I think you’re right that it’s going to be a while before we’re ready to tangle with the Californian warlords.”
“I know some depots in the area,” William spoke up, eyes sparkling. “A lot of the military is isolated right now. I don’t think they’re happy about the warlords tearing the country apart, but the various units are pretty isolated, and I don’t think anyone trusts phone lines, what with the oligarchs controlling basically every telecommunication company before everything went to hell.
“I’d have to drive out to talk to some people,” William continued, “but if I can convince them that you’re legitimate and that you’ll keep their soldiers fed and paid, I can probably convince a couple local units to join up with you. Nothing bigger than a regiment, but that’ll add a whole lot of striking power to whatever we can recruit organically.”
“Good,” Dan replied. “Even if we can’t get intact units to uproot themselves, having a number of experienced soldiers, especially if they come with their equipment, join up with us, it would be a fairly major boon.”
Dan’s brow crinkled slightly. “Actually, I haven’t followed up on the new recruits and the defectors. How have they progressed while I’ve been in isolation training? We’ll need to know roughly how long it takes to bring any new recruits up to speed before we start expanding in earnest.”
“That sounds like a question for me,” Abe chimed in, setting the dry erase maker in the trough below the whiteboard and shaking his hand theatrically. “The defectors have slotted in pretty well. They know what they’re doing, and most of them are just happy to be with a group that isn’t run by a murderous psychopath. Dan, it’d be super uncool if you snapped. I told everyone you’re chill.”
“Noted.” Dan snorted, waving his hand for Abe to continue.
“It took a couple weeks, but all of them have gotten used to their new runescripting.” Abe chuckled ruefully. “Right now, my biggest problem is trying to stop them from playing around with it during downtime. Half the time, I walk into their area of the camp, and they’re in the middle of a mana-charged baseball game. They keep saying it’s ‘coordination exercises,’ but I think that they’re just starting to get a little bored and antsy.”
“As for the new recruits, the power suit team is still pretty green, but they have a pretty good idea how to use their equipment by now. I’m much less afraid of friendly fire than I was when we were in the bayou.” Abe scratched his chin. “Plus, I think that entire clusterfuck put a little steel in their spine. I’ve caught a couple of them strutting around town and bragging to the locals that we pulled their asses out of the fire.”
“Well…” Dan shrugged, flashing a smile. “We did. They should probably avoid antagonizing the locals, but it’s not like they’re wrong.
“The rest of the new guys still need some work,” Abe continued, “but they’re getting there. So far, we’ve only recruited crews and maintenance personnel for the Bradleys that the mayor delivered. It’ll take a little while before the new guys are up to snuff; you don’t learn how to drive one of those things in just a couple weeks. But, I’d say about another month and we’ll be able to deploy them.”
“Right now, I think it makes sense to have the armor, the Bradleys, and the foot soldiers operate independently.” Dan shrugged. “Of course, I’m hardly the expert here. It just seems like three very different levels of mobility that will take on three very different roles in combat. As much as I’d like to blend the defectors in with the suits, even with the new spellshields we’ve incorporated into their armor, they just can’t slug it out with the powered armor. With their speed and mobility, they should probably be fighting like elves, mobile with quick hit-and-run attacks.”
“Nah,” Abe agreed, snapping the cap off of the dry erase marker. “I think that makes sense.”
Dan motioned to the whiteboard. “Unless someone has a better idea, I think Abe should be in command of the power suits, Jennifer should run mana-enhanced infantry, and William can command the Bradleys.”
“Badass.” Abe jotted down the notes on the whiteboard across from their goals. “For whatever my vote’s worth, I say we give each squad its own name. Helps motivate the guys if they’re called the ‘power lions’ or ‘lightning eagles’ or something like that.”
“I motion that whatever team Abe’s leading is called Human Resources,” Jennifer interjected. “I’m pretty sure he’s earned it with all of his complaints.”
“But–” Abe sputtered.
Dan cut him off. “Anyway, the next step is finding a target for our troops to train against, as well as recruiting some more soldiers. Any ideas?”
“Why don’t we just knock off Bowman?” William spoke up. “From what I can tell, this bird has some sort of giant crystal array that’s labeled a ‘spellcannon’ in the schematics. No one particularly likes Bowman. If you blow him to hell with some sort of magic space laser then park your UFO on the burning remains of his house, I think that’d go a long way toward establishing your dominance. Hell, you’d probably have a good chunk of the veterans from Brazil side with you right away. Most of ‘em recognize you from those propaganda briefings after everyone thought you were dead, anyway.”
Jennifer shrugged with an easy smile. “I mean, I’m a cheap date; blowing up a warlord and claiming his domain sounds like my idea of fun.”
“Any objections?” Dan looked around the room. The only sound was the distant noises of soldiers shuffling around the massive ship.
Almost shyly, Sam raised her hand.
“Dr. Weathers?” Dan asked, pointing at Sam while cocking his head.
“I’m fine with the plan,” she replied. “It shouldn’t be that hard to reconnect the spellcannon to the mana forges. I was just wondering. You spent a couple months locked in the gym developing a new spell. Will it be ready for the operation?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Dan answered with a childish grin. “It’s ready.”
