Remnant - XIV

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Requested By : Gib

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"I still believe the best course of action to be a more direct occupation." Admiral Alabaster grunted airily but firmly, in the way of a man accustomed to obedience in all things.

Alabaster was a portly man older than him, with not a dot of hair on his pale head or wrinkled face, and he wore his uniform as if it were a display. Finely pressed, with enough medals on his breast to stop a bullet, and the ceremonial, decorative laurels on at all times. He carried a sword, too. A traditional cavalry saber, with gold accents and dark wood for the sheathe, much like the one Ironwood himself had mounted on the wall of his personal quarters.

In short, he was every bit the sort of man James hated…

"Occupy the Faunus, and make a show of executing their brigandist leadership." Alabaster went on, standing beside Ironwood and looking out on the shining city they both defended. "That way, shipping the animals in is easier, and we can get at that tech."

"We both know we can't hold Menagerie." Ironwood argued quietly, "Every time we've tried, our soldiers have been under non-stop harassment. It's simply untenable."

"Then bomb them."

"Genocide is not the aim of this war." Ironwood pointed out, well aware of the lie - relocation by force was as much genocide as killing was. And they were doing more than enough of both as it was. And besides, only a few of the particle cannons had been destroyed, and he didn't want to know how an unshielded landing fleet would fare if they arrived for proper occupation. "You have your orders. Stay to them."

"Of course, General." The man answered quietly, the barest hint of sarcasm laced behind his words. "I was merely offering my own perspective."

"Noted." Ironwood just barely managed not to sigh. "Now, as you're here instead of embarking…"

"The admiral of the transport fleet sent me to ask-"

"No." Ironwood cut him off, "We have still not found a way to employ the WP-Canopy shields on wet-ships. The water interferes with them too much, which results in power fluctuations and overloads."

"I see…"

"You would have seen sooner if you had read your doctrine briefs, Admiral."

"I did, of course." Alabaster assured him, chuckling quietly, "But, well, the transport admiral is my cousin, and I owed her a favor, so… You know how it is, hmmm?"

"Not particularly." He grunted, and took no small amount of pleasure in the way the man's smile fell. "Good day, Admiral, and good luck."

"Ah, well… Good day, General."

The man didn't seem pleased, but he turned to salute him regardless before he turned to leave. Ironwood turned to watch him go, if only for respect to his rank, before he turned back to his window. Only a few moments passed before Ironwood spotted the blocky, silver transport carrying the Admiral off flit across the sky.

"I hate politics…" He sighed, "A waste of time."

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Sienna ducked and slipped forward, under the bayonet-rifle the soldier was using, and spoon on a heel. Her whip whistled as her arm came around, snaring the man's neck. His rifle clattered across the floor as she dragged him back, the chains digging into his dark flesh until blood bubbled free. With a quiet grunt, she yanked him to the side, snapping his neck and tossing him out of the way in one smooth motion. A woman beyond the man, fumbling to reload her rifle, gave up and bellowed as she charged Sienna.

A high-heat round seared through her breast and out her back before she'd even gotten halfway there.

"At least something he made works…" She sighed, raising her voice and demanding, "Is that everything, then?"

"Everyone's dead." One of her warriors grunted, limping forward with a hand pressed to his bloodied thigh. "Or scattered into the forest."

"Run down as many as you can, on a half hour window." She ordered, raising a fist and bellowing, "Blood for blood and fire for fire! Vengeance for Menagerie!"

"Vengeance!" Several of her faster Faunus called back, turning and loping into the woods with a mix of rifles, blades and cudgels.

The rest, either too slow for pursuit, wounded, or tending to the wounded, lingered with her. A few formed a loose perimeter along the edge of the forest. But the rest, including Sienna herself, looked down along the wagon-convoy towards the cages mounted on the wagons at the rear. She could already see a few of her fighters there, working at the locks, and made her way to them as she curled her whip up and slid it into her belt.

By the time she reached them, all three of the prisoner transports had been opened.

"I will see to them." She barked as she passed through her men, "The rest of you, salvage what you can or tend to the wounded. Gather what you can carry, we make for the boats in an hour."

As they went to work, she turned her eyes on the newly freed prisoners. All were Faunus, as she'd expected, from every walk. Filthy men and women in ragged servant's clothes, ruined from their run. Farmers and miners, too, dressed in leather aprons, thick cover-alls, and a few with wide-brimmed sun-hats. They were all exhausted, and a few were bruised and bloodied, victims of obvious abuse, but now that the fighting had passed most of them weren't frightened.

Instead, they looked angry. Ready to really fight for their lives, with the proper guidance,

Perfect.

"Each and every one of you has two choices, now." Sienna said, eyes roving over all of the Faunus in front of her. "Take what we don't, and try and make a home somewhere you think Mistral won't find you. No one here will lift a finger to stop you. Unlike those racist bastards in the Kingdoms, we believe in your right to do as you wish. There are weapons, there's armor, even carts, here. You're welcome to them."

"But," she smiled warmly, exactly the way she'd practiced so many times for moments just like these, "if you thirst for freedom, true and unfettered, you can come with me. Menagerie will take you happily. Farm, mine, cook - there is always a need in our burgeoning Kingdom. And we need fighters, too, if you believe you're up for it."

"The choice is yours." She finished, turning and stooping to pick up an abandoned Mistrali bolt-action rifle. She shoved it into the closest Faunus' arms, a mousey - literally - woman with wide eyes and flicking ears. As she left, she barked a final, "Choose."

Over the next half hour, only a few of the Faunus left them, rolling away on one of the carts with as much in the way of food, supplies and weapons as they could load up. Sienna had ordered it to be allowed to illustrate the freedom onn offer, and because her fighters were already not going to be able to carry everything with them.

At least this way it was harder for Mistral to recover their materials.

The rest were handed packs from fallen Faunus fighters, or sacks made out of sections of canvas cut off of the other carts, which were filled with loot. Most were handed the Mistrali rifles, too, to save the finer Atlesian and retrofitted rifles for her more practiced hands.

Once they'd fallen in, and the hunters she sent after the running Humans had come back, she raised her voice and ordered, "Back to the boats! We make for Menagerie with full holds and fresh faces!

Her men and women all cheered, but Sienna's mood was muted.

It was the end of the month, which meant Atlas would be sailing soon…

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Kali found her husband after half an hour of searching, standing atop Menagerie's burnt and pockmarked, but nonetheless standing, wall in the same place he had been for the last month. He was on one of the turret platforms, leaning against the wall and staring out at the badlands with a deep frown and sad eyes. The kind of sad eyes that just made her want to bundle him up, put him on the couch, and given him some fresh potato-stew to feel better.

But that had already failed. Twice…

So this time, she joined him, leaning against his side until he sighed and wrapped an arm around her. Together, they watched the thunderstorm blanketing the furthest reaches of the badlands, flashing with lighting and thunder that echoed towards them.Further up the wall one of the guards manning the turrets saw something they didn't like, a long lance of energy lighting up a track of arid land for a few moments before it went quiet.

And Ghira still stayed quiet, simply watching the badlands.

So she joined him, rubbing the hand he put on her hip and hoping it helped him feel better.

Finally, he rumbled, "Still nothing."

"I know." He hummed his confusion and she explained, "If he'd made contact, you would have told me already."

"True, true."

"You're worried about him?"

"He's a friend." Ghira shrugged, "A strange one, sure, but… A friend. How can I not worry?"

"Nothing out there can hurt him." She pointed out, "Even damaged, you said he took out a titanic Grimm. Now he's armored and armed. And I doubt the rain can do anything either, considering his regular sea-diving expeditions."

"There is the lightning."

"True, true." She copied her husband and he laughed as she'd hoped. "You heard him, Ghira. He's angry, and preparing whatever new plan he has."

"And wants us to ferret out a spy…"

"I have people on it, Ghira." And they were making progress, too. Names of everyone with access to the generators had already been drawn up, and right now alibis were being verified and collected. "They'll find whoever it was, or a lead, and we'll… Deal withit."

"You mean kill them…"

"Maybe, maybe not." It was treason, so something would have to be done. But she wasn't going to push him right now. Instead, she tried, "He'll be back eventually, Ghira."

"You think so?"

"I do." She nodded, "If only to make a point of beating Atlas."

"Hah. That sounds about right, yeah."

"Of course it does." She smirked, "I said it after all."

"Arrogant, aren't you?"

"It's only really arrogance if I haven't proven how smart I am." She purred, and when Ghira's laugh rumbled through his chest and into her, she felt all the better for it. Still, she pressed teasingly, "Or are you suggesting something, dear?"

"Me?" He huffed, "Never. I like living, thank you."

"And sleeping in your bed."

"Well, as long as you're in it, I suppose."

"Hah." She snorted, "Smooth, Ghira. Very smooth."

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"She's interviewing staff!" The woman hissed, layering static across their communication lines. Watts rolled his eyes for it - surely, she knew how this worked by now - but didn't bother to interrupt her. "Eventually, Belladonna will realize that it was me!"

"And how will she realize that, exactly?"

"I used the ranger chief's keys to get into the generator accesses." She explained, "Then I put them back, so they wouldn't expect it! But the ranger chief gets a oing on his Scroll when someone accesses the generators, unless his keys are used. So-"

"And that proves it was you… How?"

"My alibi won't hold up!" She said, "I-I said I was with Tomas, but he won't agree with me. And the other person that could have gotten in was at home with family!"

"Then why did you say that?"

"Because I didn't know about the security setting!" She hissed again, "I-I figured they'd narrow it down to some staff in the rangers, like me, a-and then not be able to figure it out! I'd lose my job, but not my head!"

"I see." The poor girl had fallen into a trap she couldn't possibly have foreseen. It was wise, of course, to employ security measures that only those above them and directly involved knew about. But it was unfortunate.

The woman had been such a good asset…

"Unfortunately, I'm afraid that our relations are at an end." He said, leaning against the wall of the restroom he was currently lurking in and watching the door warily. He heard her gasp in shock and stammered and rushed to add, "Oh but do not worry about your sister and her husband. I will find them work, as promised, and have already altered their citizenship documents so that they are listed as Human."

"They will be perfectly safe," he said, "so long as our involvement is never known. I trust you have the capsule I gave you?"

"I-I do…" She said, voice quiet, "B-But can't Atlas-"

"Then sweet dreams." He purred, smiling thinly as the loose end tied itself off. "And remember, all of this was for your family."

"You're a cruel man…" She said, "I did my job, and you're just going to throw me away?"

"I'm a cruel man." He said, "Goodbye, Miss Amitolia."

Watts cut the line before she could respond, and then sent the kill command to his relays. Each would self-destruct in turn, frying the electronic components and then setting off remote charges bound to the signals they received, thus eliminating any evidence should the little thing turn on him. Even as unlikely as that seemed, it was always wise to be prepared for anything. A rule his little spy should have known…

But there was no helping things now.

And he could collect a decent bit of Lien off the new miner's wages, too, so not all was bad.

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The storm-born wind howled and whistled sharply as it passed around the ragged stone of the dark mountains around him, but Shockwave paid it little mind. Instead his attention lay solely on the pylons he had erected, built by salvaged metal he had taken with him from Menagerie. There were a dozen of them, scattered along the lower peaks that he could easily reach and linked by long, thick, cyber-formed cables that ran along the ground, spider-webbing down to a massive generator system he had spent days carefully hand-assembling using raw cyber-matter extracted from the stone around his camp, as he had done when he awoke on this new world.

Lightning struck the pylons, and the cables carried their potent charge down into the generator's internal systems, rendering them down and scattering excess charge into the air around it in long arcs of violet lightning. More pylons surrounded the generator, catching these arcs of energy and grounding them harmlessly.

All the while, he and his drones worked, breaking away cuts of rock and loading them into a line of ore purification stations scattered along the base of the hill just up the steep, broken path from the cave he had woken up in. Iron, copper, aluminium, tungsten and even traces of titanium and other relatively rarer metals. All vital components, both natively for constructive purposes and cyber-formed into alloys.

Especially for constructing more simple drones, based on the design of the primitive Atlesian ones he had recovered.

They were not spectacular, but they were cheap and plenty.

Which was adequate.

Using them, he had flattened and smoothed the ragged path up from the old cave, and then paved over it in pseudo-concrete made up out of the leftover gravel-rock from the refining process. More had been applied to the sides of the path in the form of a steel-reinforced concrete wall that kept the earth to either side at bay. Simple fluorescent lights lined the top of the wall, sheltered by iron covers, and cast the path in a pale white light even now, in the storm.

The cave itself had seen a similar treatment, its walls expanded out several feet and smoothed, then paved over in the same concrete reinforced by steel bracings. Wires ran along the smooth stone ceiling in a web, connecting to the overhead flourescents and bathing the laboratory in bright white lights.

And it was a laboratory, lined all along its perimeters in basic computers made from more he had salvaged from Atlas, and from the badlands as well, along with what he could make himself. None were up to his level, but with them, he could develop those that were. And besides, they were adequate for his needs. He ignored them for the moment, and turned his attention on his primary project of the day.

Several of his droids were working at the raised platform, finalising support structures and attaching titanium-cyber allow armor onto the figure's base, prot-form body. A simple Dust to Energon converter hummed, filling its power reserves with the life-blood of his new creation. He stooped to grab the first of the batteries that had charged and leaned over his creation, opening its chest to access its Spark-chamber and affixing it.

As the power flowed into it, the creature began to twitch, its mandible-jaws flexing and flicking reflexively, and light came into its four eyes.

"You will show Atlas what happens when you think to make a fool of me." He growled as the beetle-like Insecticon finally began to awaken. It turned to him and he laid a gentle hand on its shoulder, "Your designation is Chop Shop. Confirm."

"Chop Shop…"

"Good." He rumbled and turned away, ordering his other machines, "The next frame."

As Chop Shop shambled away to stretch its legs and no doubt break something outside, several drones carried in the next bulky proto-frame. As they set it down the other drones went directly to work attaching its dark violet plating while he returned the emptied Energon battery to is charging slot and retrieved the next full one.

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