“So, let me get this straight. There’s an incursion happening in the heart of the city right now, and you think what’s happening outside the city is a more serious issue?” Amy asked, dumbfounded.

  “That’s right. Despite how bad it looks from a civilian perspective, an incursion isn’t actually that much of a threat to the city. The antithesis can only drop their weakest models through the rifts, so as long as the area is properly quarantined, they can’t overrun the city,” I expined. “That doesn’t make the situation any less terrifying for the people trapped inside the area, especially if they somehow get locked outside a shelter, but it’s true.”

  “The pn was to sweep into the area and clear the drop sites using Teddy’s troops within an hour of the incursion starting,” Nora added. “Clear the antithesis and prevent as many civilian casualties as possible.”

  Amy cocked her head to one side. “Soooo… what went wrong?”

  “Right before the incursion hit, a ton of hives outside the city went active. They’re spitting out stronger models and threatening the surrounding towns. The bears that I’d pnned to use to sweep the incursion zone are busy garrisoning the towns, and we’ve lost contact with some of the samurai who went out to deal with the hives,” I said. “It’s a real shitshow.”

  “Fuck me…” Amy mumbled. “And why do we have to go? I feel like with your troops, you’d be an ideal person to clear the incursion, while someone like Whisperer or Mirage deals with the hives,” Amy suggested.

  “They would be, if they weren’t on another pnet,” I muttered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “They’re on Mars,” I replied, speaking up so she could hear me clearly. “Along with about half of the pnet’s elite samurai. Turns out Earth isn’t the only pnet the pnts have been targeting.”

  “Are you sure we should be sharing that?” Nora asked me quietly.

  “Honestly? Probably not. I probably just broke a half dozen Family taboos by telling her that, but she’s a samurai now, and she deserves to know why our situation is a little fucked right now,” I grumbled. Stepping into the back of the Kodiak, I dropped my gun on one of the side benches and turned the lure off before taking a deep breath and turning towards Amy. “So, Amy, right now you have two choices. The first choice is you stay here, I’ll assign a squad of bears to you, and you continue helping clear the Incursion. It’s the safer choice and a good way to gain some experience fighting solo. The second choice is you come with Nora and me outside the city and help search for some missing samurai.”

  The girl started to open her mouth, but before she could answer, I held up my hand. “Before you answer, be aware that we can, in no way, guarantee your safety outside the city. We have no idea what’s out there, and several experienced samurai may have already lost their lives in the fighting. I don’t recommend you come with us, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s your decision.”

  It took her far longer than I expected to make a decision.

  “I’d still like to come with you,” she announced quietly after several seconds. “I know I may not be super useful to you out there, but I’d still rather stick with you than run around the streets blindly killing antithesis.”

  “Fine, it’s your choice,” I sighed. “Get on board then, and start discussing upgrades with your AI.”

  Amy nodded and sprinted to a seat near the front of the cabin. As soon as she sat down, I could hear her start muttering to herself.

  “You sure that’s a good idea?” Nora asked quietly.

  “Not in the slightest,” I replied quietly. “But it’s her choice, not ours. I’d rather have her with us than risk her following us on her own ter.”I smmed the close hatch button and wandered up to the front of the Kodiak to flick on the monitor. Giving it a little mental nudge with my augs the dispy changed from exterior cameras to a map of the local area.

  “Hey Bob, can you show me where Silent and the other samurai were when they went missing, or when you lost contact?” I asked the big bear. “I’d appreciate it if you’d also fg the location of the other samurai out there, along with our garrisons. I’d like to see what we’re dealing with.”

  “Okie Dokie, gimme a minute,” Bob decred. I watched as he scrunched up his face and even stuck out his tongue for a minute as the map slowly poputed. When it was finally done, he rexed and gave me a dopey smile.

  “Thank you, Bob,” I mumbled.

  The situation didn’t look too bad, at least at first gnce. Although there were plenty of Twelves, Fourteens, and Fifteens on the field, nothing bigger had been spotted running around. The samurai who had grouped up to take out hives were in the southeast, slowly working their way towards a suspected hive. Silent Saber, along with the other two missing samurai, had st been seen heading north and west, probably towards the suspected hives in those areas.

  As I took in the map, my eyes slowly migrated towards the town not far from Silent’s st known location.

  “Bob, we’ve got Twenty squads in Airdrie, correct?”

  Bob nodded. “Yup! You want me to pull some out to support us?”

  “Absolutely not,” I huffed. “Not only is it the closest residential area to where those samurai disappeared, but it doesn’t have a perimeter wall. Instead, take those two Kodiaks that are following us and use them to conduct aerial reconnaissance around the towns. If the antithesis attempt to make a push, I want you to have time to reorganize the defenses.”

  “S’alright, setting up the patrols now. Anything else?” he asked.

  “Do the same for Chestermere and Okotoks,” I grumbled. “And let me know the instant you see anything.”

  Flicking my finger over the screen, I recentered back over the area north of the city. The northwest had sixteen suspected hives alone, but Angeline hadn’t fgged any of them as a major threat when they went active. All of them were spitting out the standard spread of Model Threes through Sixes, and there was only a single report of a Model Twelve in the area. Nothing should have provided much of an issue to an experienced samurai.

  “What are you thinking?” Nora asked, coming up behind me.

  “I think there’s no way three experienced samurai disappeared fighting this lot,” I mumbled. “Either there’s a Seventeen running around setting up ambushes, or there’s something new in those tunnels they weren’t prepared for. I don’t know which is worse.”

  “It’s too bad we don’t know exactly which hives they were investigating,” Nora moaned. “That would have made our search much easier.”“We know they weren’t all investigating the same hive. Which means whatever got them is either moving around or shared between the hives,” I grumbled.

  “So then, what’s the pn?” Amy asked as she jumped to her feet to join the conversation. When I gnced over at her, she shrugged. “I’ve always been good at multitasking, so I managed to catch most of the conversation while I was upgrading.”

  “Right, well…” I stared at the map for a minute, thinking. “I think the best pn would just be to start at the northernmost hive, and start working counterclockwise around the city. If we’re going to find our missing people we need to be methodical, and if we start in the north that would also knock out the nearest hives to Airdrie. We’d be killing two birds with one stone.”

  “That sounds… slow,” Amy muttered.

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “It really depends on the size of the hive complexes. Once we take care of a couple hives it’ll be much harder for the antithesis to mass an assault on Airdrie’s west side, so I can probably pull a couple units out to help speed up the process.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Nora said, stepping back from the dispy. “Although I’d like to clear these hives quickly, we can’t risk splitting up or taking things too fast. Not until we know what happened to the others.”

  “We just need to make a decision and commit to it. The longer we wait, the less chance we’ll find someone alive,” I said quietly.

  Amy bit her lip and gnced back at Nora before nodding. “Then we should head north, like you suggested.”

  I nodded in response and sent a quick command to Dusty. The bear jerked the wheel, turning the vehicle towards the north, and smmed down on the accelerator. At top speed it would only take us a couple of minutes to make it out of the city.

  “Alright, let’s see what bastards are up to,” I muttered.