A Displaced Samurai

The gunfire from the west of the castle had slacked off and there was only the occasional crack of a Shiv bullet now. I wasn’t sure if it was coming from the park or from the top of Hatley Castle. So I made my way to the park at the west side of the castle, dashing from cover to cover. Eventually I spotted Arina and my heart almost stopped. She was lying on the ground, with an arm and leg mangled so badly I could see the broken internals. With her one remaining hand she was struggling to push a new magazine into her Shiv.

The obvious culprits were three Mack Battlecats that had somehow ambushed Arina and cut up her left side with their plasma claws. Now they lay collapsed and unresponsive on the ground, joined by two of Arina’s supporting Battlecats. The last one still stood guard over her, even badly damaged by the fiery talons of the Macks it was somehow still operational. I ordered the three Battleacts in my own escort to guard our position, then I whispered to Arina “We’ll get you out of here - we can’t hold this position any longer.”

“What about the reception guests? We need to protect them!”

“They’ve reached the shelter. They will be safe there for the moment.”

With that said, I called Wendy. “We need to get out of here. Arina is badly hurt and we are down to only four Battlecats!”

“On the way!”

In under a minute, Wendy came around the corner in the van. Together we scooped Arina up and put her in the back. Our remaining battlecats followed and seconds later we were racing up University Drive, way over the speed limit. A look at my internal HUD showed that the way to the Colwood shelter appeared clear of Macks, so I made my way westwards down Sooke Road. Minutes later we arrived at the shelter and carried Arina down to the entrance. I positioned the Battlecats outside before heading in and slamming the door behind us.

Before attending to Arina’s injuries I took a look at the situation as shown by HANAF’s reconnaissance drones. The coverage was poor to say the least. Especially in the northeast near the airport. But that was something I could help with.

“Elya, scramble the Spectracopters at Vanguard Enterprises and direct them to the gaps in recon coverage. Then feed our observation data into the HANAF network.”

While my drones were taking to the air, I took a closer look at Arina. She gave me a weak smile. “Thanks for getting me out of there.”

“You’re welcome! But other than not working, are the damaged body parts giving you any trouble?”

I remembered that there was an alert system to warn the user of any damage, and the warning came in the form of pain. Very muted pain compared to what one could suffer in a human body, but it would still hurt.

“Not anymore thankfully. Remember you showed me how to operate the emergency shutoff features in the SecondLife systems?”

“Yes?”

“Turns out there is a separate cutoff switch for each limb. Makes the limb completely numb.”

“Well, then let’s investigate the damage properly. I’m guessing you’ll need some spare parts.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Minutes of inspection later I said “The left arm and leg are beyond repair. Most of the torso is still functional, I recommend printing a new skin and replacements for the damaged parts underneath.”

Arina just smiled and said “I trust you without reservation. I know you’ll make me whole again.”

“I’m just glad that your head is intact” I said and lightly rapped her on said head. “Without a backup, losing that would be your end.”

“I know. But I still want to be sure there is only one of me.”

I gently kissed her. “You are the only one for me.”

To my pleasant surprise, Wendy did not interrupt us with some smartass comment. Instead she compiled a list with the replacement parts Arina needed and offered to manufacture them.

I gladly accepted. “Yes Wendy, that would be great, thank you.”

In the meantime, I took another look at the strategic map, now depending on a mix of recon drones from HANAF and from us. As I watched, suddenly one of the HANAF drones went dark. Then another. Why?

“Elya, do you have any data on why these HANAF drones are no longer transmitting?”

Enemy action. Here is footage from a nearby Spectracopter. I’ll put it on the entertainment system.

The big screen lit up and showed a city in smoke and fire under low-hanging clouds. A few buildings were aflame, with black columns of smoke hanging over them and merging with the natural clouds of the sky. But that was not what Elya wanted to show us. The screen zoomed in on a section of the image with two blurry shapes in it. I recognized the larger one as a HANAF reconnaissance drone. The other one closed rapidly, then the objects merged and erupted in a shower of burning debris. Elya confirmed my first guess.

The smaller drone was almost certainly a Type Six. Those were used as anti-infantry kamikaze drones before, but now it seems the Macks have decided to use them to hunt down HANAF’s reconnaissance drones.

“Have they attacked any Spectracopters yet?

No, they are not reacting in any way to the proximity of any Spectracopter. Presumably the Macks cannot detect those.

That made sense, our little recon drones were difficult to see even close up. But we had to do something about the Macks wiping out the HANAF drones. I had the blueprint to make the Type Six myself and send them hunting their Mack counterparts. But maybe we could do better.

“Elya, we need to get rid of the Sixes before they blind HANAF. Is there something like a micro-fighter drone that can hunt them down without being blown up itself?”

In the Class I Attack Drones catalog there is the Dragonfly Mk II that should handle that requirement well. It is quite agile and contains a single lightweight machine gun for dogfighting other small drones. I will adjust the caliber to the 5.7x28 mm you are already familiar with.

On the screen, the strategic display was replaced by the image of a strangely organic-looking flying machine. I estimated its size at a hundred and twenty centimeters in wingspan, that is four feet for the metrically challenged among you. The length was perhaps ninety centimeters.

It had insectile qualities such as a plastic exoskeleton, but also transparent, flexible wings that could twist and turn. On each wing, the strange drone had a little propeller engine in push configuration. The drone was propped up on its tail that was currently split into four supports. Elya also showed us a short flight sequence, where four supports were reunited into one tail that reminded me much of an avian tail.

“Isn’t that gun awfully short-ranged?” I asked.

It is decent at ranges up to 200 meters, and getting into knife-fighting range is normal for the Dragonfly.

“OK, and the price?”

100 points for the catalog, 800 points for the blueprint.

“Done!”

Class I Attack Drones unlocked!

Price… 100 points

Purchased: Dragonfly Mk II (blueprint)

Price… 800 points

Remaining balance: One Token and 11024 points

Now I needed to actually make the things. I ordered Elya to start printing four of the Dragonflies, using the fabricators at Vanguard Enterprises. A few minutes later, the first batch of four was ready and whirred their way into the sky.

Soon one of them found its first target. Twisting and turning, a HANAF drone tried to shake off a Type Six that was doggedly trying to intercept it for a collective suicide.

The Dragonfly swooped behind the Six in an elegant curve and cut loose with its little gun. The Mack drone did not explode, but it lost a propeller and control over its flight. In an undignified spiral it plummeted towards the ground.

Switching back towards the strategic display, I saw an entire cloud of Sixes approaching Victoria from the east. With a few blinks and eye movements I ordered my little fighters to intercept them, using my C&C suite. I also ordered another four Dragonflies from the fabbers, to be followed by more Spectracopters.

Minutes later, toy-sized aircraft clashed in the skies over Victoria. Or more exactly, it was a rather one-sided massacre. The Type Six was essentially a loitering munition. It did not have a ranged weapon of its own. The only way it could attack was by ramming the enemy and dragging it and itself into an explosive death.

That did not work against the Dragonflies at all, which had vastly better maneuverability. They would evade the Sixes with ease, dance with acrobatic maneuvers behind the enemy drones and execute them with their guns.

Within an hour, my drones dominated the skies over Victoria. It required printing some more reinforcements, but making the small drones did not take a lot of materials. Logistically, it was a rather cheap victory.

On the ground, things were different. My little gang was effectively sidelined, and HANAF and the Magical Girls had their work cut out for them. But on some of the drone footage, I saw with satisfaction that the Shivs we had delivered to HANAF made a difference.