Kick the Sphere 5 (Patreon)

Kick the Sphere

Chapter 5

-VB-

By the end of the week, we had a hangar big enough to fit my Cold and a little more. Building the houses attached to the hangar took me and my girls no more than a day, mostly because I was the one blitzing through it all.

That’s where I kind of ran into a problem.

See, I didn’t have a source of materials for construction after making quadplex to house us all and the hangar itself. Oh, I still had my electronics restocking every now and then, but the actual raw material for large scale construction was all used up.

This left me in a conundrum. A lot of what I wanted to do required me to undertake large scale construction. The electronics I got from the Forge was also not geared towards middle Atlantean technology as the Alterans moved on to crystalline technologies at some point.

Yes, they used actual crystals for processing power and storage because they were better, apparently. I also couldn’t buy it from the locals because they didn’t make steel or concrete in large quantities or uniform quality. If that wasn’t enough, then it was that I was running out of fuel for the Cold’s fusion reactors.

Ping!

… Huh, sweet. Just when I needed it.

I opened up the Celestial Forge Menu and indeed saw the extra 100 points sitting in my account for a total of 200 points.

I wasted no time scouring the Forge Menu to find the solutions I was facing and found them. Each solution was priced at 100 points. Fuel Production would get me any kind of fuel I needed, which meant I could also sell it if I began running low on funds. Rsource Generator would get me a warehouse of unspecified size that would fill itself up full each day.

I purchased them both.

Ping!

Hmm? Didn’t I just get-? Oh no, this was a message.

“‘Thank you for your purchases. Because you are in possession of a large construction tool, your two facilities have been put on hold while you choose their placement locations. Celestial Forge will hold onto your facilities for a full week before they are automatically spawned. Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful day.’”

I opened up my inventory and pulled out the Habitat Constructor PDA, and saw the two facilities clearly on the screen when I turned it on.

I pulled it up to see if I could place them immediately but couldn't. The clearing was already crowded with the hangar, houses, and the packed landing area. Trees blocked me from building everywhere else.

“... I guess I’m chopping trees today.”

I then turned to look at my Glasgow.

But uprooting them with big mech will be more entertaining, right?

-VB-

Jarod stared at the stacked lumber currently sitting just outside of his village.

It would be good to have wood ready before winter. At least no one would go cold this time.

The elder, though, looked absolutely gobsmacked.

"A mech? Uprooting trees?" she yelled in honest shock. "My, if the noble houses, other mechwarriors, and megacorps got their hands on you, there wouldn't be anything left! Your mech isn't even an industrial mech!"

Alan, the "commander" of the mercs - that's what the elder called them - in the forest, had come over with fresh lumber and asked if they would like to trade all of the lumber he had for a steady supply of food.

With the elder gobsmacked, her second eldest son agreed on behalf of the village.

She was still in shock, some ten minutes since the man and another of his team arrived, each piloting mechs.

He could see how these beasts of metal could be used to fight, especially if they could pull out the trees by their roots (or snap them at the stem in case of some).

Why did he keep staring at the mechs?

Jarod wasn't sure. At first, they terrified him. Then they made him feel small. Now? Now, he wanted to pilot one. He wanted to be a warrior who stood up to defend his people.

His bow and arrows were not even toys. They were primitive and useless, yet they were what he had learned to use for all of his life outside of the few times that he got to shoot the village's guns.

The mech… it was everything that he wasn't and more.

So he sat there and watched.

And realized.

Sitting here and watching wasn't going to get anything done. He needed to move. He needed to… do something!

"H-hey!"

Oh, he was up on his feet.

The mech closer to him turned.

"Hmm? Oh, it's you, Jarod. How are you doing, man?"

He blinked. That voice…?

"Wait, scary knife lady?"

If a mech could blush, then this one would because its pilot was vocalizing the happy complimented woman sound.

"Ah~, thank you! So what's up?"

He gulped.

"Y-you guys need someone for work? I can work for you all."

It came out quieter than he intended. Draws. Did she even hear hi-?

"Really? That's great. Alan was just looking to hire some of the locals to join us."

"Really?" he asked as his heart soared.

"Yup! Come by tomorrow. We’ll have something ready.”

And then they were gone in the next hour.

He also got a dressing down from the elder for his brazenness… and then she gave him am mission.

“Keep an eye on those people for us,” she demanded. “If they ever turn on us…”

It was a heavy mission.

-VB-

Part of our deal with the “Village Between Three Hills” - that’s what they called their village and the people who lived in it - was that I would take care of some of the local bandits.

When I talked with the elder and her people while I was over at their village to sell the lumber for food, I got a list of targets.

The Black Skull Horde in the northern plains, Five Star Bullets in the deeper forest, and the Rotgutters in the nearby city ruins. All of them were bandit clans, using whatever scraps and relearned knowledge to raid, pillage, loot, rape, and burn.

The Three Hills Village wanted the Five Star Bullets gone first, and I was inclined to agree.

But they struck first.

---

I jolted inside my Glasgow when something struck it from behind and shook its entire frame. Whirling around quickly, my Knightmare Frame’s sensors quickly found three dozen people in the woods, all aiming their guns at me.

“Enemy at northeast of the clearing! I need assistance!” I called out quickly as I pulled the frame’s rifle out from its holder and laid suppressing fire while I backed up towards the barricades.

Their guns pinged off against my armor, but I noticed three groups of five quickly spread out among the trees. My eyes widened when one of those groups pulled out an RPG and fired at me.

I jerked the controls as soon as I saw the RPG and was rewarded for it when the grenade missed me and struck the barricade to my right. I immediately trained my rifle on them and fired. The RPG holder died when a bullet tore through his head and turned him into a red mist.

Then my frame lurched forward as it took an RPG to its rear cockpit. Growling, I turned back to them but, this time, kept my eyes out.

I’m glad I did because that’s when the third group and its RPG shot at me.

This time, I ducked and shot back.

The sensor glass cracked as one well placed shot ricocheted off of it, but the reinforced glass held as I used Glasgow’s left hand to cover it from one angle of attack at least.

And that’s roughly when my reinforcements arrived.

From atop the barricades, AK-12 popped out, her silver hair fluttering in the wind and laid suppressing fire with her namesake rifle. LWMMG pulled out of the compound with the other Glasgow, and fired back at the bandits. Behind LWMMG’s Glasgow were the other half of my company, and the bandits ran for it.

“Secure the perimeter!” I ordered before firing off one last time. “They could be waiting to sneak into our compound.”

“{Secured, chief,}” P38 responded with her light German accent. “{Jericho, Negev, Spas-12, and I are holding fort. Janice is safe inside the warehouse.}”

“{We need to push them now, captain,}” LWMMG urged. “{This had to be a sizable portion of their force, and we already have their base marked down, don’t we?}”

We did, and if I let them go now, then who knows when they will be back. Maybe they might try again when I was sleeping next time.

“Keep Jarod on standby with the rest of you,” I ordered. “LWMMG, Type 64, Galil, AK-12, AK-15. Grab the Cold and fly out with us. I want you to give us air support.”

“{Yes, sir!”}”

While they prepped the combat freighter, I pushed my Glasgow over to the dead raiders.

Most of them were armored and armed in subpar armor and equipment by the normal Leaguer standard. Guns looked rough. Unfinished. The RPG …

Was that duct tape?

The front handle of the RPG was a shovel handle and the rear exhaust was a literal bucket.

“Jesus Christ, are you lot playing Rust or something?” I muttered to myself as I grabbed their bodies (squeezed their chest to make sure they were dead) and then set them down in a pile. “Weapons” were tossed into my compound where no one should get their hands on them.

… Actually, I might even be able to sell the weapons to the farmers. Make it cheap, you know? While they weren’t decent, it was better to have some weapons than not. Especially so considering that I will be getting food in return, not money. Less guilt that way.

I paused in my work as I saw another Glasgow, one that I had purchased after purchasing [Fuel Production] from the Forge. “Who?” I asked. Many of my girls were trained to pilot Glasgows, so I was just checking to see if it wasn’t Jarod or Janice.

“{AK-12, sir.}”

I hummed. “Acknowledged. I guess three frames will do better on the ground than just two.”

“{Captain, this is Galil. We are ready for take-off.}”

I got a ping from the Forge at the same time, ignored it, and gave my order to my team.

“Alright, then we’re moving out! I want these bandits gone before sunset!”

---

The Five Star Bullets resided on top of a cleared hill with a concrete fortress. They had rugged machine guns mounted on all sides of the wall (if only one for each side).

With the current technological parity on the planet, this should have been a very defensive position.

However, they were not prepared to defeat a spaceship armed with artillery.

Galil grinned as she punched it, and Cold’s 150mm Howitzer Artillery fired. The ship lurched back a bit in the air where it was hovering, but Galil kept her eyes on the fort. The wall she was facing exploded outward as the shell exploded on it, and she fired again.

Her attack drew the attention of all of the bandits inside the fort, and they tried in vain to shoot her down.

Unfortunately for them, Cold was a nimble bitch, and she easily swerved out of the machine gun emplacement fire as she moved side to side and fired back in turn.

She watched as all four machine guns trained on her, completely unaware of the three Glasgow Knightmare Frames running up the hill. They couldn’t, really, when they had gunfire turning them deaf.

And then her captain and her comrades were upon the walls.

Bandits screamed as they laid waste to everything. Some tried to focus on the Glasgows, but any stiff resistance got an artillery strike from her.

And just like her captain wanted, all occupants but those under the age of ten were killed.

As for those who were too young…

Captain gathered them up and into the Cold, and though some of the children glared at us hateful as they understood what happened, they became the first inductees to the company.