Lucas arrived in the evening with his ledger tucked under one arm and a fresh quill resting behind his ear.
"Right then, my lord," he said, dropping into the heavy chair across from the desk. "Let us go on our shopping spree."
"You sound cheerful."
"I have been looking forward to it all afternoon. I have never in my life spent money I could not see, in a shop I cannot enter, on goods that do not exist in this world." He opened the ledger to a blank page. "Where do we start?"
"Malen’s transport aircraft."
"Then let us start high. I would rather learn early how poor we are and spend the rest of the evening recovering."
Lucien opened the panel.
THUNDERHAWK GUNSHIP
Origin: Imperium of Man, Mars-Pattern Forge World
Requirement: Tier IV Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 1,100,000 System Points
Specifications: Powered by six sub-orbital thrusters; adamantium-reinforced hull engineered to sustain direct hits from main battle tanks and remain airborne. Transport capacity of 30 equipped soldiers or one main battle tank via ventral clamping rig.
Armament: 1x Dorsal Turbo-Laser Destructor, 4x Twin Heavy Bolter Mounts (2,000 rounds each), 6x Hellstrike Missiles.
Logistics: Mandates a ground crew complement of forty-one specialized technicians and servitors. Operational readiness requires extensive pre-flight consecration rites, sacred incantations, and holy oil applications.
Remark-Nothing demonstrates peak military efficiency quite like spending four hours chanting liturgies and waving incense at a stubborn starter motor while under heavy artillery fire.
"Forty-one," Lucas said.
"Ground crew. Per aircraft."
"We have forty-one men in the entire rail-switching division, and between them they keep every locomotive in the territory moving." Lucas set the quill down. "This machine wants forty-one men standing around it saying words before it will consent to fly."
"The word used is consecration."
"Then it is a religious aircraft."
"Apparently."
"One million, one hundred thousand points and it needs a chaplain. Three thousand four hundred and seventy days. Nine and a half years for one aeroplane and its forty-one attendants, and I have not yet asked what they do if it lands somewhere without a priest available."
"Close it."
"I guess so too"
LAAT/i LOW ALTITUDE ASSAULT TRANSPORT
Origin: Rothana Heavy Engineering, Galactic Republic
Requirement: Tier IV Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 420,000 System Points
Specifications: Repulsorlift propulsion. Transport capacity of 30 equipped soldiers.
Armament: 8x Turrets (2 chin, 2 ball, 4 door-mounted composite beam lasers), 4x Mass-driver missile launchers.
Logistics: Standard-issue infantry gunship during primary conflict; total production run exceeded five hundred thousand units.
Remark-Nothing reassures squad infantry quite like knowing their flying transport was mass-produced by the half-million.
"Half a million," Lucas said. "Half a million of these were built."
"That’s what it says."
"We have built one Karl-Gerät. One. It took Ironbreaker most of a year and Brakka has grey hairs he did not have before it. Somewhere there is a world that looked at this and made half a million of them and presumably went on to build something else afterward."
"Thirteen hundred and twenty-five days."
"I don’t want to know what they made afterward. Lets close it before I ask."
"Cant agree more"
VALKYRIE ASSAULT CARRIER
Origin: Imperium of Man, Forge World Pattern
Requirement: Tier IV Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 640,000 System Points
Specifications: Twin-engine VTOL assault craft. Transport capacity of 12 equipped soldiers, deployed via high-altitude grav-chute drop.
Armament: 1x Nose multi-laser, 2x Hellstrike missiles, 2x Sponson heavy bolters (500 rounds each).
Logistics: Grav-chute insertion carries an elevated casualty rate under contested drop conditions, documented within acceptable operational parameters.
Remark-Standard safety protocols dictate that if half your squad splatters against the landing zone, the insertion is still logged as a resounding success.
Lucas read that one twice.
"It says the men falling out of it are expected to die sometimes."
"It says acceptable operational parameters."
"That is the same sentence with better manners." Lucas wrote nothing for a moment. "Two thousand and nineteen days. I find I have lost my appetite for the shopping spree slightly."
"There are five more."
"Wonderful. Continue."
D77-TC PELICAN TROOP CARRIER
Origin: UNSC, Reach Naval Yards
Requirement: Tier IV Ground Support
Exchange Price: 310,000 System Points
Specifications: Crew 3. Dual main vector-thrust engines in rotating engines with four secondary lift thrusters for hover control. Cruise 1,100 km/h with exoatmospheric flight capability. Capacity of 10 equipped soldiers plus one light vehicle on the rear grapple.
Armament: 1x Chin 70mm autocannon (2,000 rounds), 2x Missile pods (30 rounds each).
Logistics: Built for sustained long-range combat operations; maintenance interval measured in months rather than operational hours.
Remark-Finally, an aircraft designed under the practical assumption that its mechanics will either be dead or stranded three star systems away.
"Months," Lucas said, brightening slightly. "That’s the first cheerful word I’ve read all evening."
"It’s built by people who assumed nobody would be coming to fix it for a while."
"Compared to the last one, which apparently needs a priest every morning, this is downright civilized." Lucas ran the figure. "Nine hundred and seventy-eight days regardless. It goes to space, my lord."
"It does."
"A troop carrier that goes to space and doesn’t need attention for months at a time. I would almost forgive the price if we could reach it."
"We can’t. We’re sixty-one percent through Tier III."
"Then it can keep its months to itself. Next."
UD-4L CHEYENNE DROPSHIP
Origin: Earth (Sol-3), Weyland-Yutani Military Contract
Requirement: Tier IV Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 165,000 System Points
Specifications: Crew 2. Four thrust-vectored lift engines built for exoatmospheric orbital atmospheric entry. Capacity of 15 equipped soldiers or one armored personnel carrier in the belly bay.
Armament: 2x Nose 20mm rotary cannon (1,100 rounds each), 4x External ports holding 280 70mm rockets total.
Logistics: Manual flight handling under real-world conditions is described in flight reports as unforgiving; specialist pilot corps required to prevent total airframe loss.
Remark-Manufactured by a corporation that clearly views pilot survival as an unnecessary drain on quarterly profit margins.
"’Unforgiving,’" Lucas said, "is doing a great deal of work in that sentence."
"It usually does, in these entries."
"Two hundred and eighty rockets, flown by a machine that punishes its own pilot for small mistakes. Five hundred and twenty days. I begin to suspect these people did not build aircraft so much as they built consequences with wings,Next please."
ORNITHOPTER (HEAVY MILITARY PATTERN)
Origin: House Atreides, Arrakis
Requirement: Tier III Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 95,000 System Points
Specifications: Articulated flapping wings mimicking avian flight. Capable of steep vertical landing on harsh terrain and low-profile ground concealment. Capacity 10.
Armament: 2x Forward rocket batteries (12 rounds each).
Logistics: Pilots must be trained from early childhood in wing-rhythm control; untrained operation of the physical flight linkage results in swift structural failure.
Remark-Because standard flight controls were far too simple, someone decided the ideal craft should fly like a panicked dragonfly and kill anyone who didn’t practice in nursery school.
"It flaps," Lucien said.
Lucas looked up. "It does what?"
"Articulated wings. It flies the way a bird flies."
"And you need to start training the pilot in the cradle."
"That’s what it says. From childhood."
"So somewhere on this world we could reach, there is a nursery for men who will one day fly an enormous mechanical insect, and if they get the rhythm wrong at any point in the next twenty years, they die." Lucas wrote the figure down slowly. "Three hundred days. I do not think Elarion has twenty years to spend raising a single pilot for one aircraft, however I should dearly ask Aurethar to hear about this one. He would attend every council for a year to ask after the beetle’s health."
"Noted, and closed."
UT-47 ARMOURED SHUTTLE
Origin: Kassa Fabrication, Systems Alliance
Requirement: Tier III Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 74,000 System Points
Specifications: Capacity 12 equipped soldiers. Hull hardened against kinetic boarding action.
Armament: 1x Mass-accelerator turret fed from an internal block of metal, providing functionally infinite magazine capacity under normal operations.
Logistics: Modular mission layout; single airframe reconfigures between assault, cargo transport, and medical evacuation roles.
Remark-A sensible military design that manages to be versatile without requiring human sacrifice, blood oaths, or a theology degree to operate.
Lucas actually paused on that one.
"That’s a sensible machine," he said. "One hull, three uses. If it breaks in its assault configuration we haven’t lost our only medical transport as well."
"Two hundred and thirty-three days."
"I was enjoying myself for a moment. Thank you for that."
UH-60 UTILITY TACTICAL TRANSPORT
Origin: Earth (Sol-3), Sikorsky Aircraft
Requirement: Tier III Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 22,000 System Points
Specifications: Rotary wing. Crew 4. Capacity 11 equipped soldiers or 4,000 kg slung payload. Cruise 280 km/h, range 590 km. Lands on unprepared terrain.
Armament: 2x Door-mounted 7.62mm six-barrel rotary guns (4,000 rounds per mount). Stub wings taking 16 anti-armor missiles or two pods of 19 70mm rockets.
Logistics: Combat-proven across decades of continuous service; considered the reference standard against which all other utility transports are measured.
Remark-Devoid of holy incense, mandatory toddler flight academies, or high-altitude suicide clauses—a shockingly pedestrian piece of functional equipment.
"No priest," Lucas said. "No childhood training. No mention of casualties as an acceptable parameter. What’s wrong with this one?"
"Nothing, as far as I can tell. It’s the cheapest one on the page and it’s close to exactly what Malen described at the council."
"Then why haven’t you bought it?"
"Seventy days. Every point we earn, spent on nothing else. Nothing for the dwarves, nothing for Dray, nothing for the mages, nothing for Cedric—seventy days, for one aircraft, and no second one. The first time it comes down we’ve lost eleven commandos and the only machine that could go and fetch them."
Lucas drew a line under the column. "That’s the whole list?"
"That’s the whole list."
"Then we have spent an hour shopping and bought nothing, precisely like my wife."
"Rotorcraft next," Lucien said. "Brakka’s request rather than Malen’s. Cheaper."
"How much cheaper?"
"Enough that you should sit up."
ORCA VTOL
Origin: Global Defense Initiative, Earth
Requirement: Tier III Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 140,000 System Points
Specifications: Ducted thrust, no rotor assembly.
Armament: Twin forward automatic cannon (1,000 rounds each), 8x Guided missiles in twin four-cell launchers.
Logistics: Low unit cost and rapid production prioritized over airframe service life; frontline attrition doctrine assumed.
Remark-Designed with all the structural longevity of a disposable paper cup, built specifically for generals who view pilots as consumable ammunition.
"They built it to be lost," Lucas said.
"That’s the implication."
"Not damaged or repaired. Lost, and replaced with another one, because the other one was cheaper to make than to mend." He shook his head slowly. "Four hundred and forty days for a machine designed by people who never expected to see it again, lets move to next one."
AN/FSC SCORPION GUNSHIP
Origin: RDA Corporation, Pandora Operations
Requirement: Tier III Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 86,000 System Points
Specifications: Ducted contra-rotating fans on tilting nacelles(A cover housing the aircraft engine). Fully sealed and pressurized cockpit.
Armament: 1x 30mm chin cannon (800 rounds), 2x Rocket pods (24 70mm rockets each), 2x Door guns.
Logistics: Built for a hyper-hostile atmosphere where unprotected crew exposure causes fatal respiratory failure within minutes.
Remark-Built for an environment so toxic that even the air tries to murder you, yet somehow still reliant on a door gunner sticking his head out to shoot.
"The air itself kills you," Lucas said, "and somebody still built a gunship for the place."
"That’s what it says."
"That is either the most admirable thing I’ve read all evening or the most foolish, and I genuinely cannot decide which." He caught himself on the word and crossed it out before Lucien could say anything. "Two hundred and seventy-one days. Closed, before I have to find out what happens to the crew if a door gun jams and someone has to lean out to clear it."
AH-64 ATTACK ROTORCRAFT
Origin: Earth (Sol-3), Hughes Helicopters
Requirement: Tier III Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 28,000 System Points
Specifications: Dedicated attack helicopter with no troop capacity.
Armament: 1x 30mm chain gun beneath the nose (1,200 rounds, 625 RPM), slaved directly to the gunner’s helmet movements. Four wing hardpoints taking 16 anti-armor guided missiles or 76 70mm rockets.
Logistics: Flight qualification pipeline exceeds one year of instruction in origin world before independent operation is authorized.
Remark-Features a gun that follows your eyes wherever you look, paired with a training manual long enough to serve as a doorstop for a castle gate.
"The gun that follows a man’s eyes," Lucas said. "You wanted that written down separately, if I recall."
"I still want it."
"Then you should also want the second line, which is that whoever builds it needs a year of training before he’s allowed to touch it unsupervised. We do not have a spare year sitting anywhere in this territory, let alone one to give a single gunner."
"Eighty-eight days for the aircraft, which we are not spending regardless."
"Closed, and I’m keeping the head-aiming line on a separate page in case it ever becomes affordable to want things."
Ka-27 COAXIAL UTILITY ROTORCRAFT
Origin: Earth (Sol-3), Kamov Design Bureau
Requirement: Tier II Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 19,400 System Points
Specifications: Dual contra-rotating rotors on a single mast. Payload 5,000 kg. Unarmed.
Logistics: Designed for shipboard operations; contra-rotating layout chosen specifically to eliminate the deck-clearance hazard of a tail rotor near working crew.
Remark-Stripped of all weapons and looking like a flying mechanical barrel, designed entirely so sailors wouldn’t walk backwards into a spinning blade.
"No weapons at all," Lucas said. "For once, a low number for a reason that isn’t the price."
"It wasn’t built to solve Brakka’s problem. It was built to stop killing sailors on a deck. Different problem, same missing part."
"Sixty-one days, and unarmed besides. Not this one."
CH-47 HEAVY LIFT ROTORCRAFT
Origin: Earth (Sol-3), Boeing aerospace
Requirement: Tier II Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 15,200 System Points
Specifications: Tandem contra-rotating main rotors, front and rear. Capacity 55 equipped soldiers or 10,900 kg cargo. Cruise 300 km/h.
Armament: 3x 7.62mm machine gun mounts (4,000 rounds each).
Logistics: Longest continuous production run of any rotorcraft in origin world; airframe design essentially unaltered across six decades.
Proof that if you make a giant flying banana sturdy enough, military commanders will happily fly it for sixty years without altering a single screw.
"Six decades," Lucas said, "and they never felt the need to change it."
"Apparently not."
"We have not managed six decades of anything in this territory, my lord, including the calendar we currently use, which Gandalf has threatened to revise twice." He wrote the number down with something close to respect. "Forty-eight days. Fifty-five men. That is the first figure tonight I have wanted to argue for on its own merits."
"Hold on to the feeling. It doesn’t survive the next one."
Mi-24 ASSAULT ROTORCRAFT
Origin: Earth (Sol-3), Mil Design Bureau
Requirement: Tier II Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 11,500 System Points
Specifications: Single main rotor, tail rotor. Heavy armored hull. Capacity 8 equipped soldiers while retaining full gunship ordnance. Cruise 335 km/h.
Armament: 1x 12.7mm four-barrel rotary gun in chin turret (1,470 rounds, 4,500 RPM), 4x Wing pylons taking 40 57mm rockets and 4 anti-armor missiles.
Logistics: Nicknamed "The Flying Tank" in origin world for cockpit armor and a documented record of returning from damage that downed lighter aircraft.
Remark-A flying slab of titanium built on the philosophy that if you slap enough armor and rocket pods on a helicopter, aerodynamics are merely a polite suggestion.
"Now that one has a nickname," Lucas said, "and nicknames are earned, not printed for decoration. Eight men and it fights while it carries them. Thirty-six days."
"Eleven thousand five hundred points against a treasury of fourteen thousand six hundred and eighty-two."
"Which leaves three thousand one hundred and eighty-two for the other five departments combined." He didn’t need Lucien to say it. "Ironbreaker gets nothing. Dray gets nothing. Skyforge gets nothing. Cedric gets nothing. Malen gets one flying tank with no spare parts and nobody alive who can fly it." He crossed the line out with more force than the others. "No. What’s left."
UH-1 UTILITY ROTORCRAFT
Origin: Earth (Sol-3), Bell Helicopter
Requirement: Tier II Infrastructure
Exchange Price: 6,567 System Points
Specifications: Single main rotor, tail rotor. Crew 4. Capacity 14 equipped soldiers or 1,760 kg payload. Cruise 200 km/h, range 500 km. Lands on unprepared ground.
Armament: 2x Door-mounted 7.62mm machine guns (6,000 rounds each, 550 RPM). Optional wing mounts for 14 70mm rockets.
Generation: Early design generation; superseded in origin world.
Logistics: Mechanical simplicity, high tolerance for poor maintenance, and extraordinarily low failure rate under severe field conditions.
A vintage workhorse built on the groundbreaking military realization that soldiers will inevitably forget to grease the gears and repair things with duct tape.
"Six thousand five hundred and sixty-seven," Lucien said.
Lucas’s quill went quickly. "Twenty-one days. We could pay it tonight and still hold eight thousand one hundred and fifteen."
"It’s the oldest machine on either list. Superseded, in the world that built it. No priest, no childhood training, no nickname, no qualification pipeline. Two machine guns pointing out of the doors and not much else."
"Then why has your voice changed?"
"The last line. Tolerates poor maintenance. Low failure rate in the field." Lucien turned from the panel. "Every other machine tonight was built by people with a thousand workshops and specialists trained for years to keep them flying. This one was built to be fixed badly, by tired men, a long way from anywhere. That is a description of Elarion on its best day."
"And Brakka’s actual problem?"
"One main rotor, one tail rotor. The precise arrangement his rig was built around, and the precise arrangement that shook itself apart last Tuesday. The Chinook cancels its torque with a second main rotor. The Kamov cancels it with two rotors on one mast, and only bothered because a tail rotor would have clipped a sailor on a ship deck. Neither one has anything to teach him about the part that’s beating him. He’d take delivery of a fine aircraft and learn nothing from it."
Lucas sat with that for a moment. "So out of everything we’ve read tonight—the priest, the half a million, the childhood pilots, the flying tank—the answer was the dull one at the bottom, with the boring specifications and the unglamorous nickname it doesn’t even have."
"That’s usually how it goes."
"Lets buy it," Lucas said, and wrote the figure into the ledger before Lucien could change his mind. "And when Ironbreaker opens the crate and finds the oldest aircraft in the entire catalogue, my lord, I should like to be standing behind you."
"You’ll be standing beside me."
"Beside you," Lucas agreed, "just tiny bit."
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