A Displaced Samurai

The next day, I went over the blueprint of my mortar bomb with Elya. Especially over the software, and in particular the algorithm for target selection. As I suspected, it would always pick the same target in the same situation, and it had no way of recognizing if a target was already dead. Obviously that part needed some refinement. To be fair, the original design was meant to fire with line of sight to the specific target. No need to make decisions about which target to attack there.

So I started work on a more sophisticated set of mortar and grenades, where the grenades were programmed while sliding down the mortar’s barrel. Some industrial espionage and Elya letting me bend the rules a bit helped. The new model even allowed picking specific targets from the live feed of a drone.

Also, recon drones of my own would be a great help. Piggybacking on HANAF resources was nice when it worked, but it still required that they used their drones in a place where they would be helpful to me. The day before, they had done so only half the time.

Finally, I was lucky I had not run into the Type Six yet. It was the equivalent of a kamikaze drone from the 2022-2025 Ukraine War, and those had killed more than a handful of soldiers, inside or outside of vehicles. Defending against the Type Six was highly important. Probably even more important than recon drones of my own.

“Elya, what do you have in terms of small turrets for automated point defense? In particular against the Type Six. Give me an overview of what I could build with my current fabber.”

A list of twenty-six turrets popped up, with images, a short description and price tags. The blueprints tended to cost ten times as much as one piece of the hardware, which put many models out of my budget.

One of the designs caught my eye. “‘What is that?”

The Micro Avian Eliminator Mark I from the Class I Light Point Defenses catalog. A two-barreled gun turret in caliber 5.7x28mm. Its cameras have hemispherical coverage, so unless something sneaks up from below, it will not get to the turret unseen. Total firing rate is forty rounds per second with an ammunition capacity of 400 rounds. Unlocking the catalog costs 100 points, Blueprint price is 500 points.

“Which species uses such weird turret names?”

It was developed by the Skitter, a species of insectoid sophonts that evolved under constant threat of being eaten by birds. That left certain marks on their psyche.

“And why does it just happen to use a terran caliber?”

A minor adaption we make if there is similar ammunition available in the world of the client species. The original had a caliber of 6.1x25.3mm. Remodeling to 5.7x28mm allows you to share ammunition.

After discussing some more technical details, I chose to buy the blueprint and ordered the first Avian Eliminator from my fabricator right away.

Class I Light Point Defenses unlocked!

Points reduced to… 619

Purchased: Micro Avian Eliminator Mark I (Blueprint)

New point balance... 119

The day after that, I mounted the Avian Eliminator on the roof of my van. It looked like half a sphere with a short cylindrical extension underneath, a few cameras around the sphere and two barrels sticking out. Imagine the head and a bit of the body of R2D2, the old Star Wars character. Just with short guns sticking out of the head.

This left the matter of if and how to fortify the fire depot, beyond my little shelter. Or even set some traps. I had a few ideas. So I called the city and offered to upgrade certain security measures at my personal expense. Which they were only too happy to accept. I paid for reinforced doors that would keep the way from the shelter to the stairway open, and put an Avian Eliminator on the roof. A fiber optic communication line connected the Eliminator with the shelter, so Elya could use it as an extra lookout. As a side benefit, I now had official roof access.

I also ordered an old PartyBox loudspeaker with WiFi remote control from Ebay. I had plans for it…

March, Thursday 12th, 2048

The day after I had delivered a prototype of the advanced mortar and some grenades for further testing, B.S.O.D. was back with Professor Callahan. Apparently, even with my admission from last time that I still had some access to Protector tech, they smelled a rat. The good professor had finally understood that “some tech documents” does not usually translate to “one girl military-industrial complex”. I had foreseen that and prepared a few compromise options.

This time, Professor Callahan started the inquisition. “Your progress exceeds the speed one could expect from a single developer quite a bit. I suspect you are holding back a lot and spoon-feeding us that Protector tech of yours. Perhaps HANAF should have a bit more oversight here.”

I got a little angry.

“I am already building armaments for you. Work with me here, not against me!”

B.S.O.D.: “We cannot afford not to have every advantage against the machines we can possibly get. So I am sorry if I have to press you here, but my duty to all of humanity does not allow me to relent.”

She had a point. Humanity was genuinely fighting for their lives against the Macks. So I made an on the spot decision to give them a greater degree of access to my tech, as long as they did not try to stuff me into some kind of “protective custody”.

“OK, I’m willing to sell you an unlocked set of recycler and fabricator equivalent to what I have here. Complete with some blueprints and CAD/CAM software. For an appropriate license fee of course.”

B.S.O.D. was not so easily satisfied. “What blueprints and CAD/CAM software, and how would this help secure our future supplies?”

“Blueprints of the ammunition I’m already delivering. I’m willing to put blueprints of the advanced mortar in escrow with my lawyers, in case I become permanently unavailable.”

I wanted to keep the mortar production to myself, because of the point acquisition rules.

Good thinking. The more degrees of separation there are between you and the use of your weapons, the lower the payout in points will be. Making the mortars yourself is less separation than licensing the design to others.

“Also CAD/CAM software you can use to feed other designs directly into the fabricator, and finally blueprints and an assembly manual for the fabricator complex itself.”

The latter was the big one. With the means to make more fabricators, they could disperse manufacturing to several locations, each able to make any of the available blueprints. That redundancy would make for a very hard to break supply chain.

Professor Callahan understood immediately. “That changes things. It will go a long way in securing future availability of the equipment we need.” To B.S.O.D. “I think we should take that as a major sign of goodwill.”

B.S.O.D. agreed. “It looks like we are coming to a good cooperation after all.”

Suddenly the mood in the room was a lot more friendly. But even so, B.S.O.D. still announced her intention to keep an eye on me.

Over the following week, we finalized the arrangement in record speed. I finally hired a law firm to help with the fine print, and in parallel I built the initial set of manufacturing equipment for the government. For now, it would be located at SHOCKS, with more installations elsewhere no doubt following.