Chapter 37

The crawler came to a stop just outside the range of the colony's military forces. What looked like a massive cannon was being carried by a strange almost swarm like CTAS. The cannon was hooked to a set of small zero atmosphere smelters which were, in turn, hooked up to a set of feeding hoppers with internal airlocks.

What looked like twenty or so children were busy dumping various bits of metal into the smelters. Each piece looked too heavy for a grown man to carry.

A strange chant-like song seemed to emanate from them. "Feed the forge. Watch the metal disappear. Feed the forge. Let it melt away our fears. Feed the forge. Let it arm the volunteers. Feed the forge. Heading off to new frontiers. Feed the forge. May it always persevere! Feed the forge. Watch the metal…"

"What the hell are they talking about sergeant?!" one soldier asked.

"The hell should I know? That thing is probably going to spit out the molten metal from those furnaces and melt all of us!"

Loyd's strange CTAS, Ragnarok, disconnected from the feeding hoses and dropped down in front of the crawler. He walked towards the soldiers; his gun aimed at them.

"Stop there! You are all under arrest for destruction of government property and for stealing large quantities of both food and metal! If you resist, we will be forced to fire on you!" the commander of the forces shouted. Several CTAS stepped out from behind the larger vehicles.

"So, you plan to send children after us?! Here I was thinking you guys had some spine left!" Ragnarok roared, charging up his strange weapon.

Children were the only ones capable of diving and piloting the CTAS units. Loyd couldn't believe they were actually willing to sacrifice these pilots, when he had made it so clear he was trying to leave, not kill more people. These kids were the future pilots against all enemies for the humans, not just pawns to be thrown away. Loyd knew how difficult it was for them to be produced, especially since all of the growth pods of the next generation had failed not too long ago.

"Open fire!" the commander roared back.

Ragnarok pulled the trigger as the humans fired on him. A stream of hot matter erupted from the nozzle of the nano-lathe he held and built up a wall in front of him. Shells struck the wall and bounced off as reinforced armor crystal, which was what the wall was made of, couldn't be breached so easily.

"If you can punch through this wall, then I'll fight you. Until then, know that you can't harm any of us!" Ragnarok boasted.

Similar technologies were used for medical procedures and gene editing but nothing of this scale could be achieved without a dedicated energy crystal. Even with a dedicated energy crystal, the generator necessary would normally be too big to make such a tool portable. Until, that is, Loyd invented the pinwheel reactor. It was capable of producing considerably more power than a stand-alone crystal. The generator ran a set of electromagnets which directed the rapidly cooling material ejected from the nozzle, into various shapes and structures at a molecular level.

"While it looks like a heavily modified laser cannon, the nanolathe's entire purpose is for the construction of complex structures at a previously thought, impossible speed. So, do you want to know what other marvels of science I've managed to create, or can we fix your cable problem?" Loyd asked, smiling down at the soldiers with a miniature nanolathe of his own, slung over his shoulder.

"Save the colony and get off our planet!" the commander finally shouted, motioning for his soldiers to back away from the crawlers.

"Good. Ragnarok, get the wall and have it smelted back down. We have just enough material for the hook and cable."

Ragnarok slung his nanolathe over his shoulder and picked the wall he had built back up. Climbing back aboard the crawler, he placed it in a shredder Loyd had made. The children hurried to gather the bits together in order to feed them to the forge.

Loyd started making what looked like a ballista bolt. The hooks on the bolt were larger than normal and would pop out of its side when a cable was pulled on it. He started to make the oversized cable and quickly ran out of liquid metal in his nanolathe's storage tank.

One of the children ran up to him and attached the feeding hose to it. "There you go, Master. Now you should be able to make the rest of the cable."

Loyd smiled at the boy and went back to work, making the cable.

xX elsewhere at Greeley Xx

"So, Loyd has arrived and plans on saving the colony just like he said. It's a shame they went ahead and evacuated the sections that would have been affected by a partial breach in the air dome but I understand why they did it. Who wants to trust a mon- no, demon," Reinhold said, chuckling to himself as he and Argenti walked towards the airlock where the abomination was waiting with suits for them.

"Hey, Mister Atrocity! I got a new name thanks to Mister Reinhold! I'm now Argenti! Isn't it pretty?!" the silver-haired girl asked, running up to the horrible creature that had killed several of the council members.

"Yes, it is very pretty but we must hurry now. Master is already running behind schedule and we don't want to worsen that, now do we?"

The girl stopped to think about how Loyd could be running behind schedule before she realized the worms were still harvesting the fields. "The worms aren't done eating yet! Will they be able to finish on time?" she asked a hint of fear in her voice.

"Only barely. We will have already started pulling the second crawler up the tether by the time they arrive and will have to climb aboard then," Atrocity answered turning to Reinhold. "I believe this suit should fit you but you won't be able to wear your hat while we travel outside the air dome. Even with such a thin atmosphere, there is quite a bit of wind today. Only a matter of time before the dust storm starts to pick up."

"I understand, but what about you? Don't you need protection?" Reinhold asked taking the suit and starting to put it on.

"No, my skin may look soft and squishy but it is incredibly thick and leathery. I am also capable of holding my breath for several hours if the need were to ever arise."

"Rather polite, aren't you?" Reinhold noted.

"Yes, well, your wife saw to it that I had some manners. The etiquette training she put me through was far more intense than anything any of us will ever need to know. However, I understand that it was important to her."

"Actually, I'm the one with obsessive-compulsive disorder. You pass my test for now but my scrutiny will only become harsher as time goes on."

"Then, I shall see if Master Loyd will allow me to tailor myself a suit and change my appearance to something a little less gruesome," Atrocity declared with a bow.

"That would be nice. I'd finally get to teach someone to put on an actual tie, instead of one of those pre-done ones," Reinhold joked.

"I gladly await your tutelage, Master Reinhold."

"Come on, we'll be late if we don't hurry!" Argenti yelled from the airlock.

Reinhold chuckled, putting on his helmet and heading in her direction. "I finally get to meet my wife and son, after nearly ninety years, and you're the one who's the most excited!"

"Maybe giving her that bar of chocolate wasn't such a wise idea?" Atrocity remarked.

"Probably not but it was the last time I could ever use my fortune. I can treat my niece once in my life."

"Your niece? What do you mean by that?" Atrocity asked cycling the airlock.

"Well, I can only assume she's related to me in some way, otherwise Loyd changed her DNA to have her appear human from scratch," Reinhold explained.

"Yeah, I'm like Master's daughter then, aren't I?!" Argenti exclaimed as the outer airlock door opened.

"Not quite, young miss. Master Loyd only reused his DNA for your appearance and then added a modifier that let all of the soundless turn into either young boys or girls from there. It would be wrong to declare yourself to be his daughter when you only share the same DNA that makes you look similar."

Argenti scowled at Atrocity while they walked to the crawlers.

"That still counts. I still have some of his DNA. That makes me related," she grumbled softly, so as not to start an argument, but still loud enough for them both to hear.

Reinhold only smiled. It had been a long time since someone had made him so tired and he found it quite enjoyable.