A Displaced Samurai

June, Thursday 25th, 2048

After breakfast Longhorn called the leadership at SHOCKS and received bad news. She called us into a meeting and started talking.

“Our landing boat has participated in a landing operation at Vancouver. Something about retrieving vital assets yadda yadda. The assault failed, the soldiers and Team Z-4 had to retreat. I’m told that Luciole was the hero of the day, she had the greatest part in getting everyone out alive.

“But the boat was severely damaged. They managed to limp back to Sturdies Bay, but it is unclear how fast the boat can be repaired. This means our taxi back will not be at Queets as planned.”

Mantis asked “What about other ways of getting out, such as by helicopter?”

“No decent landing spots in this hilly woodland.”

I asked “What if we walk downstream a few kilometers? There are areas with pretty wide sandbanks there. Should be enough to land a helicopter. We could even clear out some minor trees with the omni-cutters.”

“I’ve asked that already. Somehow it did not compute on the other end.”

I had enough and subvocalized to Elya “Is there a sort of aircraft I can both afford and build to get us out of here?”

There are various light helicopters and air cars within your budget. What are your requirements?

“Enough range to overfly the mountains and get us to Vancouver Island. Victoria would be ideal, but I’ll settle for Sooke. Show me a list of suitable vehicles with specs.”

While the others discussed various options of hiking across the mountains (questionable, we might make it to Dungeness but what then?), I reviewed the list. Still subvocalizing, I asked Elya “Explain the Hyundai Variocopter in more detail.”

It is one of the better designs from your home Earth. A two-seater electric octocopter air taxi. With its range it could bring the passengers safely to Sooke, for Victoria the range would be marginal. Note that some assembly would be required, as building the vehicle in one piece is not possible on your current fabricator. I can help you to adapt the design accordingly.

“OK, what are the prices?”

One hundred and fifty for unlocking the Class 0 Air Cars catalog. Three thousand for the blueprint.

Time to give up some secrets. “Hi Ladies, I have access to an air car design from my home world we might be able to build here. It will be an adventurous affair though, and almost as risky as the trek over the mountains.”

Longhorn: “I’m listening.”

“There is the Hyundai Variocopter from my version of Earth. Essentially an electric helicopter taxi, only with eight small rotors around the cabin instead of a big one on top. We should be able to build at least one of them, and use it to shuttle people out. The adventurous part will be in engineering, we would have to adapt some parts on the fly.”

Mark suddenly had an unholy gleam in his eyes. “Fuck yeah, I always wanted to tinker with my own heli.”

“Good to hear” I said, “and I’m told you are a decent mechanic too. I would need you for that project. If there are more skilled mechanics around, good!”

Two of the soldiers came forward. While they listed their qualifications, I checked raw material needs with Elya. We would need carbon and plastic - fallen trees, perhaps oil and plastic found in the underground complex. Steel - plenty in the form of wreckage. Chemicals for the batteries - recycle the batteries from dead Macks. Wait a moment, let's recheck the specs of those Mack batteries. They were actually better than what Hyundai had used!

I ended up with the conclusion that we could build at least one air car, maybe two if we found enough of certain materials among the wreckage.

Meanwhile, Longhorn came to a decision and greenlit the project. We created a small clearing as a landing pad, the wood went into a small bridge for easier transporting of parts.

Time for me to buy the blueprint.

Class 0 Air Cars unlocked!

Price… 150 points

Purchased: Hyundai Variocopter (blueprint)

Price… 3000 points

New balance: One token and 1017 points

Mark and I took a closer look at the frame of the aircar, as that was the first place we could not use the original design. Where Hyundai had built everything in one piece, we had to puzzle smaller parts together. Some of the original carbon fiber had to go in favor of a honeycomb structure made of Mack steel.

Mark: “I didn't think steel could match carbon fiber composite in strength per weight. That Mack steel is crazy.”

Next was adapting the cabin design, easy peasy as it did not need to be very strong. Electronics - removed some stupid limits in the original firmware, otherwise unchanged. Batteries - here we went with superior Mack batteries. Twice the range for the same weight, yesss! And while we are at it, let's adapt the charging connector to local standards.

Time to start printing.

June, Friday 26th, 2048

While our mechanics assembled the first Variocopter with great care, I printed several Spectracopters and deployed them as a relay chain to connect to the Victoria net. Once I was online, I contacted B.S.O.D.

“Hello, it is your favorite Vanguard again. We are in the process of assembling our own electric helicopters and would like to secure a recharging station for our use. It does not need to be something special, just a place on Vancouver Island where we can land a small helicopter. Charging needs are the same as for an electric car.”

“I guess the situation justifies breaking a few certification and traffic rules. Wait a few minutes, I’ll call you back.” Minutes later, she had secured a landing spot with a recharging station on the SHOCKS VIP parking lot.

Another two hours later, the first Variocopter was ready to fly. We stuffed Ladybug and Mantis into it. The latter complained about the lack of controls, but we had not taken time to modify the Multicopter in that regard. Mantis just had to cope with not piloting herself.

While they took off, I returned to printing more batteries. The idea was to recharge by switching batteries, as we could not easily bring the variocopter close to my Mack.

Soon we heard that Ladybug and Mantis had arrived and the copter was at the charging station. It was recharged soon enough to make the flight back to us.

June, Monday 29th, 2048

After several flights, only Longhorn, Private Ryan and I were left at Mount Olympus. James Ryan was the horse-guide, or in this case mule-guide of Pepper the pack mule.

Unfortunately, Pepper was too heavy for the little helicopter. James insisted on staying behind with Pepper, and Longhorn did not have the rigor to order him to abandon Pepper.

At dusk, Longhorn and I finally arrived in Victoria. We had left most of the camping equipment in a halfway clean corner of the underground base. The Mack had remained there too, it was far too heavy to move with a small air taxi. I intended to keep the air taxi, as I wanted to go back as soon as possible. But first a debriefing was on the agenda.

The entire party except James was assembled in a meeting room at SHOCKS. Longhorn started with an overview of what happened. She put emphasis on the fact that there had been an active fabricator, we had disabled it, but it might be salvageable given understanding of the technology.

Benjamin went next, talking about what we had discovered from the fabricator. “Caitlin had a blueprint of a portable signal analyzer and printed it out on the fly. Also, pre-designed probes for connecting to the embedded computer in the Mack fabricator. She managed that within half an hour. She also had some software on her aug that worked as a translation layer to make the data easily understandable.”

Predictably, B.S.O.D. looked at me. “And how were you so familiar with the innards of the invaders’ technology?”

“Remember the Type Three you requisitioned almost five months ago? The one where I even gave you documentation on how to run the reactor? Well, I had also figured out access to the Three’s fabricator and the blueprints inside. But I was a little pissed about the whole requisition business and not inclined to give you those blueprints for free.

“The same approach also worked on this bigger fabricator, the protocols are compatible. Also, with the blueprints stored in the Type Three I already had part of what we found in the new one.”

”Tech documentation of alien tech, schematics of commercial equipment, software for hacking Macks. Is there something you don’t have?”

That was a critical moment. Reveal Elya and how the point system worked or not? Doing so would make me live in a fishbowl even more than before. But it could also help convince HANAF to get out of my way when I had lots of convenient targets to mow down.

Ultimately, I wanted to defend this Earth against the Macks like my own Earth against the Antithesis. For that I needed points and sometimes I might need to give away secrets so they could be applied on a wider front. Literally. So despite some misgivings, this time I chose to take the big leap of faith.

“It depends a lot on my success in battle. Vanguard power is based on equipment, and I can buy it for points I earn for killing enemies. In this case, Macks. I also get a small reward for kills others make with weapons I have supplied. There is a reason why I keep making the mortars myself and have only licensed the grenades. Without either personal killing or the indirectly earned points, I have to make do with a small trickle called the daily allowance.”

Ladybug blurted out “So you get stuff for blowing up the robots? Cool, but I don’t see equipment appearing around you when we are fighting!”

“A special complication in my case. The Protectors do not deliver hardware to this universe. I’m not sure if contact with my home universe is even possible. But my little aug has lots of blueprints stored I can buy instead, including for fabricators. It also has an AI that essentially counts my kills. The more dead Macks, the more points, the more blueprints I can unlock.”

Mark interjected “Is that where the plans for the air car came from?”

“Yes. It did cost three thousand out of a bit over four thousand points. Big stuff tends to get prohibitively expensive, especially as blueprints. So if I can steal Mack tech instead, I'm all over it!”

Mantis asked “So you sort of have your operator in your head?”

“Slightly different from a SHOCKS operator, but close. In my home universe, I could have stuff delivered directly to the battlefield as long as I had the points. Like that QuikClot that did not appear for Orchid in the underground facility.”

Pink Orchid, grumpy: “And where did you magically get it from?”

“From the first aid kit in my Mack. Logistics the old fashioned way.”