Chương 414: Book 7 - Chapter 10 - Adding to the Lineup

"So, how exactly are you planning on 'pushing' the Gene Tender?" Spooky asked once he'd finished briefing me on the current situation.

"First of all, the bears aren't that effective underwater, and second, even if they were, we don't have any subaquatic weapons to equip them with."

"Weapons aren't a problem; the Marsupial test proved that I don't need to unlock a new catalogue. I can pick up the blueprints for a supercavitating rifle using the Linear Accelerator Catalogue. Although there may be better options, it'll be cheap and easy to both construct and deploy," I said.

"The real problem is that we need a way to mobilize them. Something tells me that sending them out to march across the ocean floor wouldn't be the most effective way to track things down."

"It's too bad the Kodiaks and Ursas don't work underwater, like the Marsupial. Then you could send them out and actually cover a decent area in a reasonable amount of time," Spooky replied.

"I don't suppose you want to invest in aquatic upgrades for our other transports too?"

"I could… but the changes would be so extensive that it would be easier to break down the entire fleet and reprint them again," I said.

"The real problem is that between hardening the hardware and adding aquatic engines, it would make the vehicles into real bricks in the air. I guess we could just upgrade a small subset of them. Still, if I'm going to invest in aquatic transports, I think it's better to invest in something specially designed for underwater combat rather than retrofitting our current fleet."

"You already have an idea, don't you?" Spooky asked, staring at me through half-lidded eyes.

"I do indeed!" I declared.

"Nyx, please introduce Spooky to our new secret weapon!" The holographic terrain hovering over the planning table flickered for a second, only to be replaced by a rotating image of a shark. Spooky stared at the image for several seconds before very slowly turning towards me.

"Your brilliant plan is to get a bunch of sharks? What are you planning to do with them- lash them to the front of the transports and have them drag them around?"

"No, of course not," I replied defensively.

"They're for the bears to ride."

"Uh-huh…" Spooky replied, obviously unimpressed.

"They're not real sharks!" I desperately explained.

"They just look like them! They're actually aquatic scooters strong enough to carry the bear's weight! There are hidden jets that fold into the tail, and they're able to fire torpedoes out of their mouths." I reached out and tapped the hologram's rear and head, causing those hidden features to unfold and reveal themselves.

"Why did you reach out to do that? You could have triggered the change mentally," Spooky asked.

"Because I like the spectacle," I muttered.

"Geeze, you're grumpy today."

"I'm extremely busy, and you've dragged me away from my duties to show me a crazy shark thing," Spooky grumbled. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"What? Do you think these are a bad idea?" I asked.

"On the contrary, underwater scooters seem like a reasonable way to mobilize your forces. I have no idea why you felt the need to make it look like a shark, though," Spooky said.

"Well, my making cuddly killer creatures is kind of my thing, so just having a water scooter seemed out of character. I needed to punch them up a bit," I explained. Spooky shook his head.

"You wanted to make it look cuddly, so you made it a shark?"

"There are cuddly sharks!" I said defensively.

"I looked up historically cuddly sea creatures, and the top entry was a plush shark. People love sharks!"

"If you say so," Spooky said, before stepping up to the hologram and inspecting it more closely.

"How big is this thing? Is it large enough to carry Moose?"

"I considered making it large enough to carry a Moose, which would make it large enough to carry a pair of regular bears, but the problem with that is I don't really have an easy way to arm Moose for aquatic combat," I said.

"I mean, yes, I could get them a Devastator equivalent, but it would be slow-firing and probably wouldn't be as effective as the torpedo against larger targets. In addition to that, the larger scooters would be slightly slower than the smaller ones, which would make our search less effective. I mean, I'll probably get the bigger ones eventually, but if we want to flood the area with scouts, it's easier to do it with the small ones." I paused for a moment and glanced over at Spooky.

"What do you think?"

"I think you're probably going to implement these scooters of yours no matter what I think," he replied.

"That's not true. I'd probably rethink the plan if you came up with a reasonable reason not to implement these guys," I said.

"Probably." Spooky sighed.

"Having a wave of fast-moving, heavily armed scouts seems like a sensible way to search for the Gene Tender and its leviathan friend, but how are you planning on deploying these things?"

"Deploying is easy. They're only a couple feet long and fit easily into the back of a Kodiak, so the Bears can fly them down to the ocean then push them out the back. We can even add a couple rails to the back of the Kodiaks for them to rest on so they're easier to maneuver," I said, before pausing.

"The real problem is retrieving them. The Kodiaks would have to sink their decks several inches underwater to allow bears to drive the scooters back in, and if they did that, it would flood the hover engines. Thankfully, I don't see a reason to retrieve the scooters until we're done here, and as long as there's not another emergency, we can always take our time to develop a method to retrieve them then."

"You really need to learn to stop saying shit like that," Spooky groaned.

"Now there'll be another emergency for sure."

"I don't know why you guys all got obsessed with this stupid superstition," I said.

"You certainly didn't get it from me. Just because I say something doesn't mean that fate is going to immediately turn around and kick me in the teeth. Reality doesn't work that way."

"Your track record would suggest otherwise," Spooky muttered.

"One of these days you're actually going to see that."

"I doubt that," I replied.

"Anyways, if you don't see any problems, then I'll buy the required blueprints and start production. With the Class III machines we should be able to deploy the first wave of scouts within ten or fifteen minutes, and we'll be able to deploy a full scouting force within an hour."

"I hope you're not planning on assigning those scouts to me," Spooky said.

"You don't have to worry about that; I'll be managing them myself. I'm practically bouncing off the walls, looking for something to do until we locate this fucking thing. This'll give me something to do," I replied.

"So it'll keep you off my back? Then I'm all for it," Spooky said. I shot Spooky a dirty look.

"Alright, smart ass, since you're so busy, don't let me keep you any longer. I can handle things from here," I grumbled.

"Just keep me informed if there are any developments on your side."

"I'll do that," Spooky replied as he turned and wandered out of the room.

"Just make sure you turn the table back to the strategic view when you're done. I'm using it to monitor the situation without dedicating too much processing power to it. Thanks!" he called over his shoulder.

"I wish he'd shown more interest in the scooter, but at least he agreed that it was a good idea," I mumbled. Maybe you should pay more respect to what he said and cut him a bit of a break. Nyx said.

"I already assigned him help," I grumbled.

"I don't know what else I can do for him." I shrugged and sent a mental command to the table, causing it to clear the shark display and reset to the coastal display.

"I'll think about it later," I said.

"For now, let's get these guys into production. We've got an Antithesis to hunt down."