Chương 153: Book 2 - Epilogue

After weeks of non-stop fighting, the lull in action had kinda taken me by surprise. The first week I'd been constantly on edge, expecting an emergency to hit any day, but as time went on I realized what Sharron had told me before was true. Incursions and emergencies were the exception, not the rule. I'd spent the last month rolling out the fabricators to the surrounding neighbourhoods, and the locals had started using them to make artisan goods, and bring in a little bit of money.

Turns out the biggest sellers were teddy bears sewn in the shape of my troops, which I'd permitted after a little bit of begging from Issi. The corps had only attempted to steal the machines twice. The first time they retreated after engaging the guards I left at each machine. The second time, one of the PMCs died when she panicked after getting grabbed by a moose, and dying to the ricocheting rounds.

That was also about the time that news came out that a group of samurai took down a global-level threat in the mountains. Considering hundreds of people saw me enter the mines, it didn't take a genius to realize my bears were involved. The corps stopped fucking with me after that. The shelter extension was also approaching completion. It had taken a lot of time, and effort from the beavers, but it was finally coming together.

They were just putting the final touches on the lower levels, so it wouldn't be long now until the school was done, and ready to accept kids. Now that there was a slight lull in my schedule, with my projects finally coming together, Nyx convinced me to travel to a field just outside the city to look at a vehicle they thought I should invest in.

"Nyx, what the fuck is this?" I asked as I stared at the image Nyx had projected into my augs. I'd come all the way out to a field just outside the city so they could show me a new vehicle through this 'augmented reality' system. The squat, flying vehicle was about fifteen meters long, ten meters wide, and four meters tall.

It looked like a flying brick, with a small cockpit on the front, and a set of massive engines on the back, but what really grabbed my attention was the cluster of two meter square, three meter tall, rectangular boxes hanging underneath. There were ten of them, three sets of three, starting about halfway down the ship, and a single pod near the back, hanging between a pair of IFVs, which were also attached to the ship.

It had several PAWs emplacements to deal with small fliers, but only a single twin, linked, coil gun turret at the front to deal with larger antithesis. It looked like an abomination.

"This is the marsupial, a specialized independent command ship. Since you had problems retrieving your bears from the tunnels, I thought you might want to invest in a new transport. One that can actually carry more than twenty bears at a time," Nyx reported. Ever since Spooky was uplifted, they started using Dusty as a mouthpiece. Mostly because Spooky practically freaked out every time he was chosen.

"It's ugly as fuck. Why does it have boxes underneath?" I asked as I wandered up to the projection and stuck my head into one of the pods. It had a handful of small bear-sized restraints around the middle, and a few support items, like laser fence emitters. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Those are Kinetic Orbital Assault Landing Assemblies. Each one holds a full squad of bears and they can be released from high altitudes to deploy bears directly into combat zones. The entire ship is designed to drop bears," Nyx explained. I narrowed my eyes, "That acronym spells Koala, is that something I should know?" I cocked my head a little.

"What does marsupial stand for?" I asked.

"Mobile Aerial Response SUPport and Independent Authority Lander. It's actually the perfect size for one of your Cub-manders to use as a command craft. They can command up to a hundred bears, before command latency becomes an issue, and that's the exact number of bears that make up both the deployment teams, and command crew," Nyx reported.

"I swear, you're just making shit up to make the acronyms work," I mumbled.

"And stop trying to make 'Cub-mander' a thing… I'm not calling my command bears that, no matter how much you and Spooky want it," I grumbled. I wandered around the visualization, poking my head into various parts, then suddenly realized something.

"Nyx… this would fit through the garage doors, even though it would be a tight fit, and it would easily fit through the access points that transports use to go between the upper and lower city… why am I looking at this here?" I asked impatiently.

"Because you've barely taken any time off in the last month, and I thought it would be worth going out for a picnic," Nyx replied.

"Fucking… I had things I wanted to do today!" I insisted.

"And now you can do them tomorrow," Nyx shot back. I stared daggers at my little possessed bear.

"In all seriousness, I would highly recommend investing in at least one Marsupial. Your transport capabilities are already pressed to their limits."

"Now that I've finished the fabricators, and building expansion, I could build a couple Kodiaks to alleviate the pressure," I said lightly.

"It took you a week to retrieve all your bears, and equipment from the tunnels. That did not include the time required to dig out your squirrels. You need a bigger transport," Nyx snapped.

"Well I don't like the idea of needing to use a bunch of disposable pods every time I want to deploy my bears," I replied reflexively, trying to think of a reason not to invest.

"They're reusable," Nyx said. I stared at the fucking horrible-looking craft for several long minutes.

"How much?"

"Seventeen thousand five hundred, and two tokens. You'll need the High-Altitude Hover Vehicle Class II catalog, along with the Emergency Deployment Vehicle Class II catalog. You came out of the battle with the Forty-Four-L with thirty-six thousand, two hundred and eleven points, and you've earned three hundred and twenty since then."

"Fuck you and your numbers," I said rubbing my forehead.

"That means this monstrosity will take… half of my points," I said.

"Not quite that much, but close," Nyx agreed.

"Fuck it, fine. Do it," I mumbled.

"Really?" Nyx asked, sounding slightly surprised.

"I said yes, didn't I? It's fucking ugly as shit, but if it carries a hundred bears and I can send Spooky to handle a situation without me, it's probably worth it. I've been building twelve bears a day for the last month, I literally have HUNDREDS at this point. It would be nice if I could actually do something with them," I huffed.

"Why do you sound surprised about that?"

"I honestly didn't think you'd buy one, I was just looking for an excuse to pull you out of the house," Nyx explained.

"I hate you so much."