“I’m really not sure how I feel about being turned into glorified construction equipment.” Dan massaged his wrist, trying to work the pain from repetitive runecrafting out of the protesting joint.
“Look, Thrush,” Abe replied, leaning back in the conference room’s chair with a shit eating grin on his face. “If I have to be human resources, it looks like you get to work the assembly line. Plus, I’ve heard that it’s good for morale to have the boss down there working shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the grunts.”
“He isn’t shoulder-to-shoulder with anyone,” Jennifer quipped, not even looking up from the tablet where Tatiana supplied her with up-to-date information. “He’s in a climate-controlled, sound-proofed office putting the finishing touches on runes. It’s hardly even real work.”
Dan shook his head sadly. “And here I thought I was the CEO of this little venture. All of my underlings are conspiring to give me carpal tunnel.”
“As the designer of your modified medical nanites,” Tatiana chimed in from a speaker situated in the center of the conference room table, “I can assure you that you are no longer capable of getting carpal tunnel.”
Will grunted, glancing back down at the tablet in front of him briefly before setting it down on the table. He frowned for a second as the rest of the table kept bickering before loudly clearing his throat.
“I thought we were here for a progress report on Operation Best Case Scenario.” His stern gaze traveled around the room, quelling the rest of them into silence. Even Dan, ostensibly Will’s boss, was briefly shamed into shutting up.
Tatiana, on the other hand, was having absolutely none of it.
“General Finch.” She struggled to avoid laughing through the intercom. “Are you seriously calling our plans to take out Peter Best, ‘Operation Best Case Scenario?’ Why not go for something a little less on the nose? Maybe ‘Operation Enduring Dragonfire’ would do?”
“I think I have to agree with our robotic friend,” Jennifer chimed in, shaking her head in faux concern. “I don’t really care what we designate the operation, so long as it isn’t ‘Best Case Scenario.’ For all I care, we can call this ‘Operation Donkeypunch.’ At least the soldiers would get a laugh out of that.”
“Enough of that,” Dan cut in, pointing at Abe before he could chime in with his own suggestion. “Will is right that we probably should be focusing right now, weight of the free world on our shoulders and all that. On the other hand, I don’t think I can take any of those options seriously. Honestly, I have no idea how we came up with a list of names that out of touch and dumb.”
“Peter Best is in California, right?” Dan continued, barely waiting for the rest of the table to nod. “What was California’s state animal?”
For a second, no one said anything. Finally, Sam broke the silence. “A bear?” She asked, confused by Dan’s non sequitur.
“Great,” Dan smiled back at Sam. “The plan is now called “Operation Bear. Will, if you’d continue with your presentation, please.”
“Can we at least call it ‘Operation Valiant Bear?’” The older man asked sullenly.
“I guess Bears are valiant enough,” Dan motioned with his right hand for the meeting to continue, trying vainly to regain some semblance of control. “Now, if we could return to the presentation?”
“As you are probably aware,” Will tried to instill his voice with the gravitas it had lost in the previous bickering. “Peter Best’s base of operation is in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has most of Silicon Valley under his thumb. His specialities are in producing heavy military equipment, such as the power suits. Through Tatiana’s help, we’ve been able to identify some larger bipedal and quadrupedal armored units. He hasn’t deployed any of them yet, but from the field testing we’ve managed to retrieve, they look like they’ll be a good deal nastier and more versatile than a full-blown main battle tank.”
“Translation,” Tatiana cut in, a giggle still barely suppressed from her voice. “He’s making mechs.”
“That doesn’t sound like something I want our troops fighting,” Dan replied, frowning. “Even if we use the Viceroy, we’re still susceptible to ground to air fire. If whatever war machines he makes can elevate their weapons-”
“They can,” Tatiana cut in cheerfully. “Their main cannon can’t aim up all that high, but they have two 90mm cannons on their ‘shoulders’ that can fire anti-armor, anti-infantry, and anti-aircraft shells. In addition, they have laser-based active defenses designed to shoot down or blind missiles. Less of a concern for our forces, but enough to make them a pretty serious problem for a conventional army.”
Dan tapped his chin. “Is there any way we can disrupt his production of these things or move before they’re ready? The Viceroy’s spellshield can probably take a couple of hits, but I don’t want to risk one of the two functioning voidships on Earth tangling with some sort of science fiction monstrosity.”
“Yes.” Will glared at Dan. “That was the plan FORMERLY known as ‘Operation Best Case Scenario’ and NOW known as ‘Operation Valiant Bear.’”
Dan leaned back in his chair and raised both of his hands in defeat. He knew better than to argue with Will. He’d win, but both of them would lose hours of their lives to the old man’s ornery nature, and they both knew it.
“As I was saying.” Will harrumphed slightly, his displeasure still evident for everyone to see. “Peter Best has made a critical error, and the time for our attack has come. Right now, most of the mechs aren’t field practicable, they have power and heat regulation issues that prevent them from being used continuously. Although we’ve seen impressive results, they spend most of their time in a laboratory under lock and key. Unfortunately, Best has been making significant progress, and we don’t know how much longer we’ll have before the mechs are ready for deployment.
“The other good news is that most of his forces are away from San Francisco.” Will picked up his tablet and scrolled down to look at exact details as he continued his presentation. “Most of his mobile forces are pushing toward Los Angeles, seeking to break through Drummond’s lines. It sounds like Best has realized that Drummond is on his last legs, and he’s committing most of his army to ending their conflict once and for all. Right now, all that he has in San Francisco are static defenses and three hundred suits of powered armor belonging to a unit he insists on calling his ‘praetorian guard.’”
“Three hundred suits of armor.” Abe whistled. “That’s not a lot of people, but that’s going to be tough to crack. We’ve been able to roll over pretty much everyone with twenty to thirty suits at a time. I don’t want to even think about three hundred.”
“Three hundred plus machine gun nests, minefields, and a token conventional force,” Will corrected him. “Remember, none of these suits have runes on them. They’ll still stop rifle fire, but they’ll be clumsy and fragile compared to ours. Plus, it’s still better than facing his entire army. Our current counts say that he has almost five thousand infantry backed up by two thousand suits.”
Abe grimaced. “Still not a fan. Even the baseline suits need some sort of anti-material fire to take them down. They aren’t as bad as a tank, but they’re harder to spot, and calling in air support on them can be a problem. If you give our boys enough high-caliber firepower and have them supporting our suits, we can probably do it, but we’re going to lose a lot of people.”
“Dan,” Will turned to him. “If you could give us an update on the runecrafting?”
Dan leaned forward. The last couple of weeks had been almost nothing but inscribing. With Tatiana’s help, he’d discovered a couple new avenues to increase efficiency and outfit their troops. Soon, they’d be seeing the fruits of his and his apprentices’ labor.
“So far, we have a lot of bracers.” Dan shrugged. “Since the production of the nanites has ramped up, we’ve administered almost a hundred more doses of them. That said, we’ve been able to awaken a good portion of the army. They won’t have anywhere near the skill they’ll need to actually use magic in the short term, and if we try to wait around so they can learn, the Orakh are just going to end up eating all of us. But, even without much finesse, they can still push their mana into and use enchanted objects.”
“We’ve managed to make almost a thousand of the bracers.” Dan’s hand ached at the memory. “The process is fairly standardized. Silver alloy is used for both of them, and my apprentices carve most of the introductory runes, relying upon me for the finishing touches. Every right bracer increases the speed and reaction of the wielder by an order of magnitude, and every left bracer generates a spellshield.”
“It’s not anything too powerful,” Dan cut in, trying to silence the whispering around the table. “It’ll take maybe two shots from the .50 calibers mounted on a suit or ten to twenty from a rifle, but they operate off of the user’s mana. If you can get to cover and let the shield recharge, you’ll be good to go in another five to ten minutes.”
“Now tell them about the vehicles, Dan,” Will interjected, entirely too smug for someone who had nothing to do with the painstaking experimentation that led to the innovation.
“With Tatiana’s help, we’ve found a way to enchant the Bradleys,” Dan responded reluctantly.
“It isn’t perfect,” Dan continued speaking over yet more whispering. “We’ve been able to put a silver plate in the vehicle that will accept mana from one person at a time and generate a spellshield around the Bradley. It has a whole lot more surface area than a personal spellshield, making their efficiency pretty bad, but anyone inside can add their mana to it.”
“In short,” William set down the tablet with a smile, “Most of our units will be able to withdraw once they start taking fire and let their mana recharge. So long as we keep a healthy reserve of troops and vehicles equipped with the new runes, we can rotate the fresh ones in and keep our casualties to a minimum. If we can combine that with air superiority from the reapers, we should be able to cut Best’s forces down to size fairly quickly.”
For a couple of seconds, no one responded as they tried to absorb William’s information. Finally, Jennifer pushed herself back from the table and stared up at the ceiling, leaning back in her chair as she tapped her chin thoughtfully.
“Tatiana,” she asked, her expression murky. “Does Peter Best have access to military aircraft?”
“Of course,” the chipper AI responded. “He has a private airstrip with ten ‘decommissioned’ F-16s and another ten helicopter gunships. Most of the rest of his air force is far to the South and probably won’t be able to return in time.”
Jennifer looked meaningfully at Abe.
“Shit,” the man said emotionlessly, sagging in his chair. “Someone’s going to have to blow up that airstrip, and it looks like I’ve been volunteered.”
Dan nodded. “Of course, I’m going with you.” It wouldn’t be his first or last commander raid, but he had to agree with the sentiment. The Viceroy could theoretically teleport high enough up into the stratosphere to avoid fighters, but doing so would almost immediately cede air superiority to Best. If the reapers weren’t in position to drop bombs on the enemy power suits with relative impunity, they were going to lose a lot of soldiers, even with the spellshields.
“No,” Will shook his head, Jennifer and Abe silently indicating their agreement. “The Viceroy can’t jump without you or Jennifer. As soon as the airfield goes down, we’re going to need to begin the attack, or everyone on commando duty would be promptly hunted down and captured. Abe will just have to pick his most seasoned troops and hunker down after he takes out Best’s air force. I’ll be in charge of the combined arms coming in to relieve him, and the two of you will take command of the air.”
Dan opened his mouth to respond before closing it silently. They were right. As much as he wanted to have fun on the ground with Abe, duty demanded otherwise.
