Anti-antithesis

A number of Samurai have personal vehicles, ranging from the more practical town cars that assist them in moving from point A to point B, being what they use in their normal, day to day lives, to the more functional weapons of war. For the former, it is agreed upon to leave them be, letting them bypass the normal traffic restrictions as Samurai involved traffic accidents are so rare, you would have a better chance winning the lottery twice before getting a payout because a Samurai T-Boned a minivan.

And for the latter? City traffic controllers actively reroute sky lanes to avoid them as best as possible, which is made easier as their AI tends to offer "assistance".

Now, can anyone tell me why we are having this brief this morning? John? … Exactly! If you move to pull over a Samurai vehicle that is obviously signaling they are on business, the Police insurance explicitly does not cover any finding out you may incur for fucking around!

-Transcript of morning briefing from Baltimore Police Department after officer John “Foot in ass” Johnson lost his foot for trying to arrest a Samurai for speeding.

Walking out to breakfast with Cari the next morning was an interesting experience. Synaptic started the morning by making sure we were up before the others had to leave for training by a few hours, yet the way she chose to do it was unique. She had a Raven wearing a chicken hoodie walk in and started its best impression of an old rooster, causing Cari to pelt the bird with pillows. We eventually evacuated to the shower, which was another unique experience for me.

Synaptic chose that moment to to explain a quirk of Slitherian biology that wasn't covered in the biology lesson I bought, as it fell under cultural information more so than medical, though I called bullshit on that.

Massaging the legs like I had done is a deeply personal and intimate act, a sign of trust and.. a few other things. They normally used a dedicated machine, something less personal in their normal routines. And considering Cari had never massaged her legs before today, the effects were… explosive to say the least. I had to buy a dream learning course for tail massages more specifically, considering Cari made it abundantly clear she would not be getting a machine, and I was concerned that the musculature difference between humanoid and snake could cause problems if I went at it like normal.

The morning awkwardness ended as we joined the rest at the dining table, with Cody rolling his eyes at us. “Sands, Vic. You get a girlfriend and immediately start acting like rabbits? I had thought you were better than that.”

Roger chuckled, “Oh, like you, mister ‘connoisseur of the cultured parts of the Mesh’?” He says, putting a stupid accent on the title. Cody started stuttering out a defense while Jill snort laughed at his fish impersonation.

“So,” Buddy starts, “Morrigan will be here in a moment to take us to this Cruiser she had been teasing us with, and we will have a few hours to explore it. We do have the next two days off training before Hilda and the others want to test us on a new mission.”

I perk up at that. Smiling, I say. “It will be good to hang out for a bit without any crazy emergencies happening. I do have a few things I want to talk to you guys about, anyways, and it will probably take a while.”

Jill raised her eyebrow before teaching over and tussling my hair. “Good on ya, little brother. Glad to see you planning ahead, for a change.”

Cari giggles at us. “Oh, yes. Planning ahead, something Victor is very familiar with, isn't he?”

Morrigan chose that moment to walk in. “Victor and planning? I mean, he tries. Problem is, things keep happening before we can sit down and actually plan things out.” She reaches the table and steals a strip of bacon.

“Any chance things will change?” Roger asks, chuckling.

“Depends.” Morrigan says with the bacon strip hanging out of her mouth. “He's no longer marked as on break, so he will probably be called on to deal with hives In the area. Not to mention the many requests for interviews and a press conference Bahamut keeps delaying. But! That's a later problem. Who wants to see my baby?”

All of us nod and voice various agreeing sounds as we finish our plates, leaving it to Baba Yaga's minions to clean up after us. We shuffle to the garage and hop in an elongated golf cart, something that I know we didn't have yesterday, but I wouldn't turn it down today. While the garage is pretty big, it was still walkable, and I was certain I could move just as fast as this thing If I wanted to. Yet, there was something ceremonial about using the cart.

Morrigan drove us to the huge hangar bay doors leading to the dry dock as flashing yellow lights and a warning alarm started blaring, indicating the doors were opening. Extra theatrics Morrigan was relishing, drawing out the anticipation. The room beyond was dark, with light spilling in from the garage. Passing the threat hold, Morrigan threw her hands up. “Behold! The Memo!”

I heard everyone laugh at that as the lights thumped on, illuminating the ship in all its violent glory.

The ship’s hull itself was sleek and curvy, reminiscent of battleships of old at a length of eight hundred and sixty feet. The entire thing was gun metal silver with hexagonal blue line patterns across its hull, and had two key differences from ships of old, however.

The first was that all of the massive armaments were on its bottom and sides, rather than the top deck, and Sweet Sands were those cannons huge. Four huge rail guns hung below, ones that I recognized as the same model that I bought for the southern hive assault. Along its side facing us were four different sixteen inch cannon batteries. Two kinetic, “conventional” batteries, one bulbous plasma launcher, and one huge laser array. The second were the engines. Three massive jet engines that looked like they belonged on space ships, not a naval vessel.

The front of the ship held a massive flipped ice breaker, and I could see ten torpedo tube holes on just its left side. I also saw a few glass domes on its bottom, and could see they were lounging areas, and two seemed to be full of water.

The golf cart lifted itself off the ground, soon leveling out above its main deck, which was flat, but with four landing pads below the sixty foot tall, bulky yet sleek control tower near the rear, and sixteen missile launching bays, lined two at a time, side by side, from the landing pads to the ramming tip.

We were all silent in awe, yet buzzing with excitement as Morrigan took a lap around The Memo. “The Memo, or rather, The Memo Class Heavy Cruiser, is designed to act as a siege breaker, a mobile heavy fortification and a force multiplier. The eight batteries on its side have one hundred and sixty degree coverage, while the four main Super Heavy Peasant Railguns can only move and target things within a sixty degree cone, however their base can spin in a three hundred and thirty degrees each, making sure that you don't need to be facing the target head on to shoot it.”

“The Cow Catcher ramming prow is designed to launch forward slightly, utilizing pneumatics to increase the potential damage, while also being coated in shield generators to minimize the damage taken. There are twenty torpedo tubes that can be loaded with various long ranged explosive payloads, or can be used to launch drone swarms that I am designing.”

The landing pads shift, then descend into the hull. “The main deck, as you can see, has four zones designated for Shuttles or other craft to land and be stored inside its docking bays, which has been spatially expanded to be able to hold sixteen shuttles, and room set aside for eight smaller personal vehicles." She then waves to the other sixteen squares on deck, which open by sliding into the armored hull. “The missile silos you see on deck can each hold four ICBM missiles, and can be reloaded through internal manufacturing at a speed of one minute per missile per silo. Less, if you decide to utilize more conventional payloads. Next are the point defense guns hidden in the hull itself, which can unfold out to act as both super dense AA fire, as well as more targeted smaller caliber fire. Though, smaller is relative to the sixteen inch cannons, as the smallest caliber available is forty millimeters. This is not a precision weapon, mind you. That is what the shuttles, the drop pods, and their troops are for.”

“No shit, Blue.” Roger says, the awe still very apparent in his voice. “This thing could level a small country.”

“Hmm, maybe Pre-Incuration countries. Post incursion installations, well, properly maintained installations like those found in New New York and certain corporations HQs, would be able to repel its assault. That said, they would have a very hard time breaching the armor. Not only is it currently shielded with Class II hardlight Shielding technology, with plans to upgrade it to Class III, but the armor itself is a two inch titanium-carbon alloy, utilizing singularity forging techniques to maximize structural integrity of each square inch, shrinking the armor from its original eight inch thickness to its current state.”

“Hold up, how does that work?” Cody asked.

Morrigan turned to face him, as he was two rows behind her, eyebrow raised and smirk forming. “Cody, brother dearest.” I see him shiver at her tone as it was dripping with honey. “What do you think singularity means in singularity forging techniques?”

He narrows his eyes and huffs, pouting. “I don't know, baby sister dearest.” He says, eliciting a laugh from the rest of us, and only deepening Morrigan's prideful smile. “Something about black holes, right?”

“Good job! You are correct!” She says with a chipper voice. “Using controllable micro-singularities and electron manipulation, I am able to not only align each atomic lattice to ensure perfect stability, but also minimize the space between the protons, electrons, and neutrons.” I saw Cody’s jaw drop as he comprehended the implications of that technique. “The downside of this technique is that it requires considerably more materials to cover such a vast ship.”

“Hey, Morrigan. Didn't I only give you the catalog for this stuff, like, a few days ago? How were you able to make this much material in such a short time?” I ask.

“Uh, well… it's because this is basically Class I materials…” She said, scratching her head. “I have plans to slowly replace the armor with Class III stuff on the go, as The Memo Class Heavy Cruiser does have four manufacturer sections inside it connected to the Moon mine stockpile, which can be shifted to field collection for biomass denial. But, well… It is flight ready and capable of standing up to anything in the Twenties.”

“Are there flying Models in the Twenties?” Buddy asked.

“I mean, technically.” Moreigan answered, turning back to the front as she drove us to a landing pad. “The antithesis have basically infinite different forms, and given enough time and adaptation, there could be Model Twenty Threes that could fly.” A haunting image. “That moth Model was a variant unique to Earth, more specifically here in Arizona, probably as a test to bypass the hardening of the ground Shrew does to defend against tunneling. In the information catalog Victor bought about the xenos filth a while back, I discovered that they have invaded a few, mostly, gas giant-type planets, and they only had flying models available. And let me tell you, those things put H.P. Lovecraft to shame. Not that thats a difficult thing.” She mutters the last part.

As we land on the ship, the pad lowers into the hull, showing a huge empty hangar bay with sixteen marked spots for shuttles and the eight relatively simple parking spaces. "Now, from here, we have to walk around as while the halls are big enough for the cart to drive down, it will not be able to turn, nor will you be able to get off.” She says as she hops off. “Now, this ship has, of course, been spatially expanded inside and is able to accommodate a working crew of six hundred and a standing force of four hundred. I have made the decision to not include minor repair nanites as a base feature, as to give any humans stationed aboard enrichment activities such as maintaining vital systems, cleaning, and gardening.”

“But you could have nanites take over those, right?” Cari asked. “Considering we don't have those troops right now, and I don't fancy any of us wanting to maintain a ship this huge on our own.”

“A fair point, Cari.” Morrigan concedes. “I will make sure to have a few Owls and Mannequins stationed here until we hire a new commander and crew for this ship.”

“You didn't plan on that with the current PMC set up? There are five whole companies, yet this ship doesn't seem like it is designed to fit within that structure.” Roger mentions as we make our way to the bridge.

“You would be correct, Roger. This Heavy Cruiser was designed to be Victor's Flagship, as the next ships that will be designed with Mindy and her airforce in mind, closer to flying mobile command centers. Half the size, a quarter of the armaments, but more space for troops and vehicles.”

“Then, why would I hire a thousand people to man a flagship that could be fully automated?” I ask.

Morrigan stopped just before an elevator and turned to me. Her eyes bore into mine with concern. “Victor, you need a community. While your relationship with your family and us commanders is very good, you need human interaction of the positive variety. There are many reasons I could give you as to why it would be a good idea to hire more people, how it would help not just them but everyone related to them, but that's not what you need right now.” She summoned a blue hardlight step ladder and made herself equal to my eyelevel, placing her hands on my shoulders. “Consider this my attempt to reaclimate you into humanity, Victor. Cari has done a wonderful job, showing you that other humans aren't all awful. This is just another step in that direction.”

I felt Roger place his hand on my shoulder and squeeze slightly. I exhaled. “Just… give me some time before you start hiring, alright?”

I saw Morrigan smile softly as she nodded, then the elevator opened. “I can do that. Now, come on. Let's go see the bridge.”

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