"I need a weapon."
I do know how to pick 'em. Bullet, bomb or burn?
"Any of my catalogues have a flamethrower?"
No. How about M19 rounds?
"Thermobaric?"
In a forest?
"One problem at a time."
Alright. It's your forest anyway.
A case appeared on the ground, already open, with a clip for the M41. Ejecting the old clip with a round still in it, I slapped the new one in and let all four fly.
Will you look at that, a newborn nest. Someone got lucky today!
Anything will burn if you fill it with white phosphorus. The whole thing writhed frantically, with a sound like popcorn as seedpods burst. Flaming half grown dog weeds ran in all directions and I began to worry about the fire spreading. Both of us steadily potted them but the fire was spreading. Luckily it rained yesterday and the understory was fairly damp, only burning where the dog weeds fell.
"Autumn, do you know the implement used to control a canefire last century?"
I don't currently have network access.
"Like a broom except instead of a brush there's a wire and a wet hessian sack like a flag but in line with the handle instead of being at ninety degrees. Two of them and a trough of water to wet them in."
We ambled from kill to kill, following the scorchmarks and putting out first one kind of fire and then the other till none were left and the nascent nest was no longer a conflagration, just a fire with satellites.
"You sounded pretty excited about the nest."
Yes! Your first token, Chief! And quite a few points.
"Token?"
We need to talk.
"That sounds ominous. Talk."
Privately.
"That sounds worse. Fine, have we got enough points to leave Oleksiy with some spare Hummingbirds and some clips for the M41?"
They're in the tray, Oleksiy. Lazybones here will help you carry them into the house. He also bought you a sling for the launch clips, some webbing and holsters for two Hummingbirds and a pair of binoculars.
"I have catalogues and points for all that?"
You don't need catalogues for Class 0 stuff, which is anything you can buy retail. And the bonfire was profitable. We should do that more often.
"Right. Oleksiy, let's get you back home before Sissi gets pissy. She's scary. I'm going to have to go. You have my number if you need help or ammo." Signal here is patchy but SMS works. He doesn't need instruction, that would be telling granny how to drink vodka.
Lazybones did not help carry the toys. While Oleksiy ambled over his moat, arms filled with alien loot, Autumn decided to tell me things. Tokens and catalogues. Protectors and the selection of Vanguard. Some things common knowledge, some not. She wanted me to get augs, but Trix is dead against them and I'm not exactly wild about things messing with my head. We compromised on glasses with an earpiece for occasions when I don't want to wear PPE. I wear glasses anyhow, and these ones are awesome. They have active lensing that moves in and out with the focal distance implied by the parallax of my eyes. So when I go crosseyed looking at the end of my nose, that's where they focus. They were in the External Augmentations Class I catalogue, which is apparently a steal at thirty points. Trix is going to want a pair. Since the glasses themselves were a whopping three points I've asked for a pair for her. Autum will deliver them giftwrapped too, which is nice.
I was about to drive off when Sissi marched militantly over the moat with a sheepish Oleksiy in tow.
"When you need, he go. Just go. You know?" She's a little Thai woman, the perfect host, most often demure and retiring, but sometimes ferocious. "He tell you what his name mean?" She didn't wait for me to reply. "Defender of mankind. I know why you trust with space things. When you need, he go. Waste time ask. Important." I didn't know what to say so I nodded and thanked them both.
We had quite a few points, I gathered, from the nascent hive. I wanted the recon drone Autumn kept talking about, but now she seemed to want to kit out the local wildlife with tracking tags, like some sort of science project. The tags go a bit further than terrestrial science tracking tags, they have elaborate sensor suites. The biggest hurdle was the lack of a local network, for which the short-term answer was more drones. It sounded expensive but apparently ecosystems that resist antithesis are a subsidised field of study and we can go nuts. My little patch of forest, intergalactic research project. Who would have guessed?
There were people at the van. Trix was, it seemed, entertaining. And they wanted to talk to me.
"I need five minutes, please. Be right with you." I headed for the toilet, not because I needed to go, just for privacy. "Autumn, I want a drone catalogue and from it a recon drone. Multi-spectrum, thermal, acoustic everything worth having, and when it's not doing recon I want it to serve as a physical point of presence for you. Can we afford that, allowing for medical and panic-buy reserves of 500 points each?"
That will set you back 1280 points, leaving about 600 and the reserves.
"Good. I want Trix to have medical power of attourney not limited to the reserve. Can I do that?"
You can.
"Good. Who the hell are they and what are they doing on my land?"
That's probably my fault. When I negotiated the research subsidy I may have raised hopes for fortifying ecologies. You're quite far from the norm in how and what you protect. It's an approach that wouldn't have worked anywhere else, but this is a hard land that knows how to push back. Did you know some of these trees actually need a forest fire to propagate?
"Yeah, acacias I think." Wandering back, Trix has a cup of tea ready for me. "Thanks darl." Autumn has her new drone and greets them.
"To what do I owe the honour?"