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2024-10-29 19:42:56In Remian’s head, the timeline of progress went like this;
One hundred years from now, the Mitigok will arrive and this world will be devoured. There was no fighting them or fending them off. Even the Quarin and the Tau together couldn’t stop the Mitigok. Their only option was to evacuate and take as many and as much with them as they could.
Somewhere in between now and then, the Dras Clan will arrive to fetch their children, i.e. the Overlords of Sorrel II, Zor’khan-dras and his kin. This would likely be within seventy years, maybe fifty. At absolute worst, it might be as soon as twenty years from now. Zor’khan wasn’t too clear about the timing.
By the time that happened, Sorrel II needed a decent planetary defense fleet. Using the Tau police patrols as a standard for what was sufficient to fend off interstellar bandits around these parts, that meant at least a complementary mix of specialized cruisers, a minimum of six for each of the major roles; assault,
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Kingdom of the Weak 388. Where the Portal leads
In the end, Tang Yin went to the Dragon Empire with Ermine and Rune Master Le’tte. [Mindy, keep an eye on them, will you? Also, take care of them.] It took a while for Remian to communicate his intentions and concerns to Mindy about the Portal and future prospects, but at last, Mindy concluded, [Selling that Portal to the Quarin seems to be our best bet for survival. Have they agreed to help us divert the Southern Portal in exchange for usage of the Eastern one?] [Rune Master Ay’eni has agreed, but Le’tte wants to inspect both Portals first and then pick whichever one suits their purposes better. It has to do with the direction the Portals lead towards, or something. They’re limited to the places they can go, so he wants to check them out before buying, so to speak.] *** Mindy was dripping with sweat when the Decontamination Room filled with fire and evaporated all the moisture on her skin, leaving her and her fire-proof apparel quite dry. Lea
Kingdom of the Weak 389. Nodes
“Opening the Eastern Portal to the Third Node!” It was roughly an hour since the last Opening, and this time, Mindy was good and ready for it. This time she, too, stood in a protective runic circle. Everything loose in the room had been carefuly set outside. She even had her sword drawn and prepared for a fight if necessary. Swirling energies stabilized, and then... Nothing happened. “Oh? Not leading to outer space, this time?” Mindy cautiously peered at the Portal. “No, and even if it did, we have the orange barrier protecting us now, so it wouldn’t suck us out.” Tang Yin assured her. “It’s the same energies that protected the Rift in the Southern Wildlands.” “Speaking of, are you sure we can use that Rift to build a Portal?” Mindy asked. “It’s pretty high up in the air.” Tang Yin shrugged. “So we build a tower or a castle or something. It’s not impossible. Compared to everything we’ve already been through with that Rift...”
Kingdom of the Weak 390. Return to Xiao Yan’s World
Remian found Xiao Yan looking over the Pit at Kara-Goth thoughtfully. Since the old days when the pit was a sheer drop into a black hole, the extensive mining done here had turned it into a massive stadium-like hollow, with rows upon rows of descending levels like oversized stairs. “Hey. What’s up?” Xiao Yan asked, having caught on some to the way Ermine and Eriane spoke. Remian paused. “A lot. You?” “Not much. Just the same old.” Xiao Yan shrugged. “George approved my plans to turn the Pit into a massive tournament arena. I’m having second thoughts though. An arena could be anything, anywhere. This Pit looks like an ideal spot for a solar tower. If we filled it up with mirrors to concentrate the sunlight on a central tower and used solar thermal systems...” “Everything above the pit would be fried, including us.” Remian cut her short. “We could use less dangerous methods. Pneumatics...” “Let’s just stick to the arena. Think about the
Kingdom of the Weak 391. Ghosts and Demons
At the ruins of Cloud Valley City, the distinctions between the Ghosts’ turf and the Demons’ turf were easily seen by the state of the human corpses in them. The dead bodies on the Ghosts’ turf were withered and gray. As for the Demons’ side, well... there weren’t any bodies. They’d all been devoured completely. Mindy observed with a frown. “Those look like zombies. I wouldn’t be half-surprised if they suddenly got up and started attacking us.” Little Li, on the other hand, was throwing up incessantly. She was down on her hands and knees, already having lost her breakfast and seemed to have little more to spew up, but she was still heaving non-stop, various fluids dripping from her eyes and nose at the same time. “Something tells me that when she thought of joining the battle front and her sister, this wasn’t what she had in mind.” Ling Yun mentioned to Remian in a low voice. Even he looked disturbed at the sheer amount of the dead. “Do they really lo
Kingdom of the Weak 392. Ghosts and Demons 2
“You heard her!” Zhao Feng was there next, likewise in charred and torn armor, but looking at Mu Hou with a smirk. “Get out of here. This is no place for merchants.” Mu Hou snarled, but turned around and grabbed Little Li under one arm. Then, he leapt into the air, heading south. Remian darted toward them. “Come to our camp at West Cloud Mountain Forest. Our goods are there. We’ll need to bring them to Scorched Earth City.” Mu Hou gave him a short nod, not saying anything farther as loud shouts and the sounds of battle arose behind them. “Watch out!” a loud shout rang out just before something very large fell out of the sky and blocked the way in front of them. It looked like a spike-shelled turtle on two legs, scaly, red, and very arrogant looking. If Remian could put words to a reptile face, he’d think the creature was boasting about its invincibility and their imminent destruction. That, or it had a stomach ache. Remian wasn’t entir
Kingdom of the Weak 393. Speculating on Xiao Yan’s World
The deal Mindy worked out with the Xue and Mu clans was a bit different from what Remian had in mind. For one thing, she included more goods than the appliances that Remian had brought. For instance, Floating Carts. Frankly speaking, these were derivations of hot-air balloons that people could push around, mainly as an expensive novelty. They had the advantages of being able to reach upper floors and roofs without needing to carry stuff by hand up ladder or stairs, and if necessary, even fly. When Remian found them upon awakening, Little Li and Mu Hou were thirty feet in the air with Mindy, all in a horse-cart tied to a massive hot air balloon. Also, she had them taste Wilds meat, specifically wild boar, which had been infused with Sorrel II’s ambient mana for years, and not only its lifetime, but for generations all the way up its ancestry. There was a distinct taste to Wilds meat due to that, and Mindy was pleased to discover that Mu Hou placed a high value on such
Kingdom of the Weak 394. Big Money
Later that day, Remian attended the auction where the Mysterious Metals were introduced as Metals From Another World, their innate elemental powers highly overrated and hyped up by an enthusiastic sexy auctioneer girl. On top of that, all four metals were sold as a set. In the upcoming bidding war, you either won them all, or nothing at all. Plus, as far as anyone knew, you couldn’t get these anywhere else, and quite possibly, would never see their likes again. The very first bid opened at five million Black. “Ten million!” “Twenty million!” “Fifty million Black!” Mu Yun roared. Instantly, a lot of interested faces fell. “One hundred million!” City Lord Zhao Tian shouted. Zhao Feng’s and Zhao Heng’s father was all red in the face when he made his bid. Seeing that, almost everyone else in the auction hall gave up. “One hundred and fifty!” The sole exception was Mu Yun who refused to back down, raising the bid by fifty million ag
Kingdom of the Weak 395. All hell breaks loose
“Ay’eni.” “Remian.” “We have a way to send you back to Quarin space. It could take a day or so, but you would get there immediately.” “Really? How?” “We bring you through the Portal to Xiao Yan’s world, and there, we use the ancient formation near Scorched Earth City to send you to the place marked ‘home’. That’s how I left that world the last time and I ended up in Quarin space. You can do the same.” “Why, that sounds awfully convenient! But right now, we’re in the middle of something, and we don’t abandon our commitments easily.” “Oh? Are you really not going to take the quickest way back?” “Well... it’s tempting, but no. We’ll finish what we started here first, and by the time we’re done, there will be other ways to go home.” “That’s too bad. I was hoping I could ask you for support from Quarin space once you returned.” “Eh... that’s... really too bad. I’m sorry, but I have to go. Your brother’s still fightin
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523. Comms
Somewhere along the line, he’d lost consciousness. George only realized it when he woke up to a splitting headache. “Ow.” He groaned. “What... where...?” “We’re on the way back to Sorrel.” Grace told him, appearing by his bedside. And it was a bedside, he realized. He seemed to be in the Kara’s Medical Bay. “I’m sorry. We had to retreat.” “Our... people?” George managed. “The HAC Troopers made it back. The Mechs... did not.” Grace paused. “We have the refugees though. And the Robotic Assembly Plant for Mining Drones. That’s all they managed to grab.” George slurred. “Mech pilots?” “Alive, if battered.” “Good. Alive is good.” George sighed. “This... didn’t go so well.” “Hey, at least we got the guys we were trying to save, and some machinery on top of that. You might say it was a success. A costly one, but a success.” “Casualties?” George asked. “Plenty of injuries to go around, but no deaths. So far.” Grace paused. “Some of the really badly injured might change that before lo
- Kingdom of the Weak
522. Second Aid Mission
“Were these really the best you could do?” George asked, eyeing the six hulking figures in front of him hesitantly. “Mmm.” Juni grunted. In front of them were six brand new Mechs. 2nd Generation products, they were armored weapons platforms on legs, with jumpjets for the signature ‘jumps’ that earned their generation the nickname, ‘Jumpers’. Or were they? George wasn’t entirely sure. When he looked at them, they really looked more like 1st Generation Walker-types. Those Jump Jets seemed to be an afterthought, an added equipment haphazardly strapped to their backs. “Would they really work right?” Juni shrugged. Given the time and materials he had to work with, George supposed he couldn’t expect better. He had only just received 2nd Gen tech. Until now, he’d been working with 1st Gen expectations and schematics. One of these Mechs seemed a bit worn, evidence that it had been built quite some time ago, and only recently been modified for George’s requests. “Fusion Cell for power, Pu
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521. Next Step
It turned out that they also needed to acquire salvage rights to haul away ‘scrap metal’. Fortunately, that was a simple affair now that they had local currency. 50 USD and the matter was done. Grant, being the nearest specialist on matters of scrap to their location, graciously offered to transport their ‘scrap’ directly to their vessel out of sheer goodwill. Finally Benny and Sam went to try out the barbecued skewers. At Grant’s recommendation, though, they didn’t go to the Starport roadside stall. They ended up at another roadside stall run by a ‘foreign refugee’ someplace downtown not too far from Grant’s workshop. There, each skewer was loaded with rows of thick, juicy beef sausages, and only cost 20 USD for 10. Benny stretched. “Not bad for our first day. We’ve got three days here, don’t we? But we’ve already got half of what we wanted.” “What’s the other half?” Sam asked. “Technical manuals on engineering, power and propulsion. Tech, basically.” Benny yawned. However, whe
- Kingdom of the Weak
520. Uber States Colony
“Black Fang, you are cleared for docking. Follow the designated path and welcome to Trifer, colony of the Uber States.” Benny stood on the observation deck of the Black Fang below the bridge, listening to the conversation between the comms officer and the dock authorities. He eyed the massive sprawl of structures and smoke emitted below and wondered. “This is what they call a ‘small’ colony?” The colony was bigger than Craggy Falls, Kara-Goth and Nightshade City put together. “Just how many people live here?” Benny asked next. “According to our sensors, about half a million.” The bridge crew told him. Okay, that was less than the human population of the Sorrelian Migration, which, after including the Cumin survivors, was over 800,000. They shared the sensor feed with Benny, Sam and Foxy. Looking at the scope, Benny realized that most of the colony below consisted of machinery and robots. Furthermore, what he saw on the surface wasn’t even half the colony. The entire complex went
- Kingdom of the Weak
519. Scoop
That evening, Benny and Sam left with Tim’s battle group, headed for the nearest Uber States outpost with medicine in the cargo holds. This left only one freight galleon to ferry materials and regretful space miners from the surface to Sky Haven. “It’s going too slow.” Remian decided. “I need to call Raven.” With Mindy busy trading across star systems, Raven had inherited (bought over) her airship fleet and company on the surface. They built more gunships and scout ships than freighters these days, mainly focused on providing recon and fire support to ground forces fighting Undead. But it was those freighters Remian needed now, the bigger the better. “We need them refitted for extreme high altitudes, as high as they can go.” Remian explained. “Also we need them spaceworthy, at least up to low orbit.” “You want our airship freighters to fly into space?!” Raven spluttered. “Yes, but not on their own. I want them to haul cargo and passengers as high up as they can. Around 30km woul
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518. We should call Remian
“Relax, I’m not asking you to build them from scratch. You’ll need to remodel a Galleon and a trio of our current Dropships. We do want proper Mech Carriers in the future, but for now, we need to deploy urgently, so we’ll just remodel what we have.” Ermine brought up some projections. “The Mechs in question are going to be Light Walkers, designed and built by J-Armory. Juni’s had a workable prototype for a long time, but it’s never been needed until now. Live testing is scheduled to start in three days. They’re powered by Fusion Cells, the kind that looks like dustbins, so you won’t need to worry about fuel lines, just cell-swapping. You won’t need to worry about replacing the He3 in the Fusion Cells either; spent cells will be sent back to J-Armory for recycling or refueling or whatever it is they do. Same goes for the weapons; Jamie’s J-Arsenal will handle maintenance and replacement and all that. The ship only needs to carry the Mechs, deploy them, and run basic maintenance. Repai
- Kingdom of the Weak
517. Objectives and Objections
They met online the next day. Remian opted out, letting them handle it. Upon bringing up the subject of the Woofers’ request for more aid across different planets… Ermine snorted. “I refuse.” “What?” George stared. “I refuse to help them.” Ermine said stoutly. “I know that you guys all have some sort of savior syndrome, and it’s something that Remian seemed to have passed down from the very beginning, the sort of meddlesome hero complex that has you all trying to save the world at personal cost, but I’m no hero. I’m Tau, and we’re practical survivalists. We simply can’t afford to go around saving everybody. We need all our strength and resources to save ourselves. As for the Woofers, as a collective, they are a Class 5 Star Civilization, a whole class more advanced and stronger than us. They have their own governments and their own fleets. Let the Woofers help the Woofers.” Xiao Yan cut in. “As you say, they are a Class 5 Star Civilization. Since you’re talking about praticality, t
- Kingdom of the Weak
516. Changing Gear
“Go, go, go!” green light flared in the bay of the Dropship as the floor fell away. George and twelve other figures were unceremoniously dumped on the ground nine feet below. They landed with heavy impacts. George staggered, realizing the gravity on this world was at least twice what he was accumstomed to back home. For a moment, he regretted leaving his Frame back on the ship, but they were here to clear the bandits out from a city center, meaning tight spaces, narrow access points, and needing to take care to avoid civilian casualties. Or at least, that was the plan. George and his squad had been deposited on the outskirts of the city, at the very border of a suburban district. “Incoming!” someone yelled. George crouched as something exploded; the ground shook and chunks of dirt flew through the air. “Get to cover! Return fire!” George called, even though he wasn’t entirely sure where the attackers were, exactly. The guys diving behind nearby garages and a public toilet clued hi
- Kingdom of the Weak
514. Out there
Quite predictably, the first of those calls to reach Sorrel II was from their dear friends, the Woofers. Three Paws explained it. [This is from Kelso III. It’s an agrarian world, roughly eighty hours’ flight from here for our fleet. Local gang bosses have titled themselves warlords and suppressed the citizenry with brute force. They take whatever they want, and demand whatever payment they like, on pain of death or torture. Local law enforcement has been completely overrun and even planetary militia couldn’t save the settlements under their control. The best our local paws could do is contain the situation and prevent it from getting worse.] Remian sipped hot coffee. Eighty hours flight for the Woofers Fleet should mean a bit less than seventy for the Tau fleet. “That’s rough. But what’s the point of calling us here to tell us this?” [We can help them. Just one division of your fleet could make a huge difference against these local gangs.] At the moment, the Sorrelian fleet consist
