The Afterdeath (a comedy)

Johnathan Cooper had been waiting in line a very long time.  He wasn't entirely sure just how long; there were no clocks, no calendars, no time pieces where he was.  There was only The Line.  A seemingly endless line of individuals, strangers, occasionally shuffling forward, amidst a bright world of eternal day.  It was pleasant, if featureless and boring; a fluffy white fog seemed to cling low to the ground, in every direction.  It was hard to tell if he had moved at all.  It was hard to tell how long he'd been standing there.  Did he just get here? He was pretty sure he'd been standing for a while.  It was hard to tell.  Everyone else in line seemed to agree.

No one ever got out of place in line - there was a a tacit sense that doing so Simply Wasn't Done - and so conversations proceeded largely with one's immediate neighbors in line.  Stories would travel up and down the line, but usually became garbled in the manner such things did.  John didn't know the people around him, but apparently that seemed to hold true for much of the line.  Everyone had seemed to live fairly good lives though; good, God fearing men and women.

Just how long had he been waiting in line? He didn't know.  Patience is a virtue, he thought.  Well, not officially, but it's a good thing, he quickly amended.  It didn't seem to matter, however.  There was nothing for the line but to wait.  He couldn't even fall asleep from the boredom.  He'd tried counting the people in front and behind him, that he could see; he'd arrived at 67,332 repeatedly.  He was confident it was an accurate number.  He couldn't be totally sure either, but it seemed like each time he'd counted, it were the exact same people in the exact same order.  Possibly that would be the next thing to try; he was saving it for when he got tired of simply counting.

At least the weather was pleasent; a sunny blue day, a few fluffy clouds in the sky.  He couldn't quite tell where the sun was though.  In fact, it never seemed to change - it just seemed to come from everywhere.  Not too hot, and not direct - which was fortunate, because he was pretty sure he'd forgotten his sunscreen - but simply omnipresently radiant.  Just right.  Like the temperature.  Strange, there were no birds.  No animals of any kind; no insects either, but that was just as well.  He couldn't stand insects.

There just didn't seem to be anything but The Line; if he hadn't been standing on it, he wouldn't have been sure there was a ground at all.  He was moderately sure there was; he seemed to be standing on something, at any rate.  Did that cloud move? No, no it hadn't.  Maybe.  It was hard to tell without any points of reference.  He stared at it suspiciously, as if daring it to move.  Or perhaps it was staring at him? He took a step forward, along with the entire line, and then came to a stop again.  He'd moved hadn't he?  He, and not the cloud?

He sighed.  Always, The Line.  Nothing to do, he supposed, but to count again.  One, two, three...

===========

The Devil was angry.  Indeed, he was Greatly Upset.  This was not, in itself, unusual.  He would not have described himself as being particularly given to calm or happiness.  Not in the usual sense, at any rate.  He worked hard, all day, every day, dealt constantly with whining, complaining scum; and the screaming.

The screaming never stopped.

He'd tried to convince himself once that he enjoyed the screaming.  The screaming, he had thought in an altogether agreeably malevolent manner, is as a soothing lullaby, whispered to my weary soul to comfort me.

But no, it was still just screaming.  Always, the screaming.  it never stopped.  He had thought it was his own fault, particularly after the Scream Louder and I Will Torment You Harder campaign (which had failed spectacularly, but he refused to give them any victory, and so the tactic continued).  Once though he had tried simply not tormenting the damned: not searing their aetheric flesh, not puncturing their bodies repeatedly with glowing hot, poisoned, implements of torture, not playing dubstep (that one had been more a relief for himself than any kind of attempt at anything), not recreating their vile (or even the rather less vile, fairly innocent, more-of-a-misunderstanding-really-than-an-out-and-out-sin) sins (everything was a boring rerun by now anyway), not freezing over at random with skin peeling cold.  In short, being just a place, rather than an altogether unpleasant place to spend any amount of time.

That hadn't worked either.

The latest development was, however, just too far.  It had always been accepted that Hell would eventually reach capacity; the Devil had argued about the inevitability with Management.  The response had been to introduce remediation programs and the possibility of parole to free up space, and a promise to look into acquiring more real estate for expansion in the future.

Except real estate prices only increased; real estate owners lobbied against zoning that permitted the expansion of Hell into their area on grounds of blight (as well as Blight) and decreasing value.  So they'd just have to make do.

Only it had been only around two thousand years and Hell was full.  Literally.  There was not a free centimeter anywhere; the Devil couldn't even get in, and had to furlough a large number of his demons (which had caused a great deal of discontent, itself not normally a terrible thing in Hell, but now there were rumblings of unionization which would be a right pain to deal with).  Those still working were generally working around the door, or simply jabbing souls in line.

That had been new.  There was a line to get into Hell.  It had, at first, been something of an ironic innovation (he wasn't sure why he hadn't thought of it first, in all honesty) and he played around with ideas of assigning "boarding zones" (which would never be called), lines that led in a circle, lines that led to other lines, and so forth.  In the end, he'd had to: the back up had grown to ridiculous proportions.  He hadn't even the space to do anything truly cruel with the floor; they'd settled for sprinkling tacks on the ground, which the Damned surreptiously swept out of the way with their feet.  Everyone pretended not see anything. It was all quite embarassing and, even more, inconveniencing.

And so the Devil was in Heaven.  It was uncomfortable.  It was awkward.  It was bright and shiny and, frankly, he stood out.  He hadn't had an opportunity to take so much as a shower before coming, and Hell was hot, sweaty place.  To be entirely honest, he wasn't entirely sure which place he'd found more uncomfortable: Heaven or Hell.  It just wasn't something that ever really came up in his day-to-day.  But now he was here, waiting for his appointment to talk things over with The Management, although he felt certain they'd send him some know-nothing junior official to blow him off.

 And then He came sauntering over.  Jesus.  The Junior.  It was looking to be, in what had been an unbroken string of bad days, an Especially Bad One.

Fight Night

"Frank Feldts here with my co-host, long time veteran gladiator Chet Sommerlan!"

"Thanks Frank, a pleasure to be shootin' from the sidelines with you, as always!"

"Right back at you Chet! We're broadcasting LIVE from the Junk Pit arena; tonight's match up is between light weight class walkers.  In one corner, we have a member of the Gray Steel Hawks mercenary outfit, Jair in the Horseless Headsman; his opponent, up and coming gladiator Johann Graebauer, currently enjoying a five-win streak in his Spartan Prince.  Ladies and Gentlemen, this promises to be a standout match.  Chet? Your thoughts?"

"Well Frank, it's not unheard of for mercs to do a round or two in the arenas; but it is uncommon, and usually results in some fierce and brutal matches."

"Right, long time gladiator fans will know, there's an intense rivalry between Mercs and Gladiators, and no love lost between them.  Chet, you've fought your share of grudge matches right?"

"Sure have Frank, and let me tell you, if Johann thinks he can just swagger his way through this match up, we might have to rechristen his walker the Spartan Coffin.  You couldn't pay me enough to get in there right now against Jair's Headsman."

"And here we are now looking at Jair and the Horseless Headsman; Relevant technical data is flowing like the booze at Geirmund's Mead Hall, official sponsor of tonight's match.  Chet, can you help our viewers at home make sense of all these numbers?"

"Can do Frank.  Headsman is a custom job like most merc walkers; you have a Halsev Tornado chassis up top.  The Tornado is a excellent light torso; all-rounded surfaces help deflect all types of incoming fire.  Ample weapon hardpoints on the lower torso; pilot's compartment is spacious and well armored, power plant is symmetrically distanced to the arms and legs.  Arms have good clearance for a wide variety of arm mounted weapons."

"That's because of the bulb-shape of the torso right?"

"Exactly; although Jair's walker has a custom matte black and weathered taupe paint job that makes the torso look like a giant skull;  he's still got the high velocity short range machine guns on the 'jaw', but it looks like he's added something to the torso's weapon bay mounts that wasn't there before-"

"You're talking about that flickering flame light in the eye sockets right? Those are freaking me out right now, like damning eyes, and I could swear they didn't use to be there."

"Yeah, those are definitely new, they look like pilot lights for a mark 3, or even mark 5, Kenbishi flamethrower.  And of course, he's still got his signature weapon, the Guillotine.  I swear that thing gives me nightmares."

"Yeah, that is one seriously evil looking, large axe"

"Headsman's chassis is paired with a RenkeiZ bipedal locomotor platform.  Nothing special, but very reliable.  Good speed, very agile, average stability.  Dependable and sturdy, the kind of gear you'd expect on walker that might have to go weeks or even months without a full maintenance."

"That's a common complaint, right? That gladiator walkers are showroom divas and merc walkers are, well, as Johann himself put it, 'the butch of the ball.'"

"Yeah, and I mean, that's just a matter of circumstances and goals you know? It's comparing Rifles and Grenade Launchers."

"I'd be hard pressed to call the Headsman 'butch'; that skull effect is actually quite terrifying.  Now we're over in Johann's bay where they are finishing prep work on the Spartan Prince.  It's quite a different walker altogether.  Chet, you mentioned the bipedal platform on the Headsman, perhaps you can start us off with how Spartan Prince's, uh, 'chicken legs' are different from those, and how quad legs are different from both?"

"Haha, I'd be careful Frank, Johann might throw a challenge your way!  But seriously, the 'Reverse Counter Jointed' leg platform is one that is built for speed.  It's excellent for closing the distance with a foe, as well as keeping your distance.  But that straight line speed comes at a price: the design has poor agility for maneuvaring and dodging, and the altered joint makes for a more hopping gait which makes aiming on the move more difficult.

Now quad legs, those four legged, low slung, kinda spider leg design, those are bult for stability.  You see them often on long range type walker; makes those sniper shots easier.  But more legs means a slower gait and lower top speed.  Their agility is surprisingly decent, due to their ability to side-step."

"And in spite of all that, Johann has a shoulder-mounted long range High Energy Laser."

"Yeah, it's unusual to see something like a HEL on a light-class walker.  Uses up a lot of the spare capacity of the power plant, and not that great for a run-and-gun fighting style you usually see on the lighter guys.  Of course, the Spartan has a bit more armor than usual, opting for a Coregiani Barone chassis with augmented armor flares."

"It's a beautiful standard-type torso with pauldron and gorget flares.  Although like most walkers, it has no true 'head'."

"Yeah, well, why would you put the pilot in a standout, lightly armored location right? Stick him in the chest."

"Speaking of which, the Spartan Prince is well equipped for that task, rounding out it's armaments with a Lockheed medium range kinetic rocket rack on the right arm and a Medieapons ultanium hardened spear-mount in place of the lower left arm."

"I heard that tonight's match had something to do Johann making a spear thrust motion at the Gray Steel Hawks and Jair offering to castrate him in reply."

"Ouch.  We'll see who lives up to his words in a few moments as the two combatants move onto their arena lifts.  Now Chet, you've fought plenty of times in the Junk Pit right?  What is it like?"

"The Junk Pit is a pain in the ass, and the management is proud of that reputation.  It's dark, muddy, and there's metal every-god-damn-where.  Drives the sensors crazy.  And most of the junk piles are scuttled and obsolete walker parts.  That, and the random bits of machinery that are active but doing nothing useful drives targeting bonkers.  And if that's not enough, they've wired power sources to some of the odd bits of walker trash in the pit, and they love to turn them on and off at random.  If you don't have a heart attack from getting a proximity alert from the junkpile you just walked past, it's because you are probably too busy shitting yourself."

"Cabin boy, get me my brown pants, right Chet?  Haha!  And how about that 'warehouse' structure they have in the middle? That's got to be tactically significant, right?"

"Not as much as you'd think Frank.  It's a rusted out, two story metal death trap really.  It gives you a better view, but you can't cover all the angles, and you're as likely to fall through the floor or get caught from behind while staring out the window for your opponent as you are to get the jump on them.  Sometimes it helps, but it's usually a rookie mistake."

"And here we go the lifts are rising into place and our fight is about to get underwa-wow would you look at that? We could have a very short fight on our hands!"

"Oh yeah, it's not often they do this kinda thing Frank, but the operators do sometimes start the walkers out right near each other, practically back to back."

"All that stands between these two is a stacking container! Fight fans, it's all over the second one of them turns the corner and catches the other off guard!"

"Talk about an aluminum sheet between victory and disaster; they are both turning clockwise around the container! It's like a choreographed dance to destruction!"

"So what do you think is going on in their minds Chet?  Give us some insight."

"Well, Johann is making straight for the warehouse.  I think it's a mistake, but probably he's going to try to leverage the range advantage with his HEL; you know usually he's in the Garden or the Colosseum, he just doesn't have any experience in this arena yet."

"Certainly.  Who can forget his recent win in the Garden?  Blasted a hole through the hedge maze with his rockets to stun his opponent and then finished him off with the spear!"

"Took a page right out of Jair's book with that one, which may have led to all taunting.  There; Johann is heading into the warehouse and Jair, well, I have no idea what he's doing-"

"Yeah it looks like he's moving some of the machinery around - what is that, a plasma welder? Thermic lance? Can't really tell-"

"I think he's trying to get it closer to that burnt out hulk; yeah that's precisely what he's doing.  Someone told him this is a fight and not an art competition right?"

"Looks like Johann has negotiated his way into an empty room on the second floor.  What do you make of what he's doing with his spear there Chet?"

"Sly son of a bitch.  See how's scoring the floor with his spear, making cross hatches? He's weakening the floor leading into the room.  He can't watch for the Headsman and cover his back at the same time.  So he's setting a trap; he's weakened the floor and he's counting on Jair to close the distance to use his axe if he comes up on Johann from behind.  Tricky bastard, but I think it's a risky gambit; He's underestimating Jair."

"Does seem like a plan that could backfire if things go wrong.'

"Right; and in the arenas, things always go wrong."

"Did you see that? Did Jair use his flame throwers? I didn't see any flames-"

"That took me by surprise too; Frank can we go to an instant replay on that? Look, he fires his machine guns on the hulk from behind cover and - Bam! There it goes, up in flames!  That- that is truly evil.  Those have to be some kind of incendiary rounds."

"Ostriches, look at that thing burn.  I've never heard of incendiary rounds for a machine gun, Chet?"

"They don't make 'em, far as I know.  That is truly evil.  That must be something their techs came up with.  I'll say it again, you couldn't pay me enough to get in there."

"Well I still don't see what he's up to, but - there! Spartan Prince is opening fire his HEL! It looks like Horseless Headsman will be going home e- hold a minute, looks like Johann missed wide-"

"He's doing more than missing wide, he's lasing the hell out of that plasma welder.  Haha! That's what it was about! And now Johann's given his position away!"

"For a viewers at home Chet, what the hell happened to Graebauer's aim?"

"Well, I told you before about how all the machines and junked walkers screws with the targeting sensors right?  A pilot still makes the call on what to fire on though.  Johann saw the flaming hulk, must have thought Jair fired on it by mistake, and disregarded it; he started looking for Jair.  What he found was the plasma welder.  Must have seemed close enough, and with the way it's facing and the welder points at high temperature, he must have thought it was the Headsman after firing the flamers!"

"And now the Horseless Headsman is closing in on the tower! He's getting some remarkable accuracy with just machine guns at that range, isn't he?  Looks like he managed to catch the Spartan off guard without coming at him from behind!"

"Yeah that last barrage set the window and part of the room on fire; Johann wasn't expecting that and now he's panicking!"

"Fire is every walker jockey's fear isn't i- OH LOOK OUT! HE'S FALLEN THROUGH HIS OWN TRAP!"

"I called it didn't I? Frank I called it: it was going to backfire and it did.  Panicked with his arm on fire, back pedaled away and fell through his own floor trap-"

"JOHANN GRAEBAUER HAS OSTRICHED THROUGH THE FLOOR! I don't see how he's going to recover!  He's face down, stuck in a pile of floor plate and machinery, getting random holes bored into his armor and assorted crap welded to his torso-"

"Oh. Oh it's all over.  Here comes the Headsman.  It's all over but the crying for our little ostrich."

"He's popped his flare! He's signaled surrender! Johann Graebauer has thrown up the white flag and with that-"

"Given up with barely a fight, his sponsors are not going to be happy with that.  They are not going to be pleased.  Rising gladiator pulls an ostrich and gives up - Coregiani is going to be pissed."

"Ladies and gentlemen - hold on, the Headsman is still approaching, he's reaching down and raising the axe! Chet, is this-?"

"Haha! It looks like he's taking a souvenir, or making good on his promise - chopping off the Spartan Prince's spear arm, haha!"

"Well, I guess it's only natural for a merc to get some salvage after a fight in the Junk Pit, right?  Ladies and Gentlemen, now that we've whetted your appetite, we've got coming up in the Hall of the Mountain King a two on two bout between...."

Walkers

Captain Seth Jechsen strode through the large main hold of his planetary lander, the Excuse Me Coming Through.  It was, in reality, simply a large empty space suitable for a number of different purposes.  The mercenaries took that to heart and used it in precisely that fashion.

Gantries along both sides housed giant Walkers, both those combat ready and those in various stages of repair and refit (or, occasionally as fortune permitted, even construction).  Crates of supplies floated in zero gravity near various Walker bays; others were stored more securely in chain netting towards the command side of the large hall.  Various bits of machinery sat on one of the three floors - in zero gravity, every direction was "down" - or moved about on weak ion differential thrusters, puttering about to repair or remove or reload some piece of equipment.  Pilots and technicians floated about, busy with pre-drop maintenance, each pilot trying to get some last bit of performance squeezed out of his or her Walker, and each tech adamantly stating it would be impossible.

Of course, all the necessary work would get done; but first, ritual had to be observed.

Seth floated on back towards the command side of the hall, having just done his usual pre-mission tour of preparations.  It would soon be time to brief his lieutenants and pilots, but first the head technician had requested a meeting.

Head technician Endon Gantz had been a rare find; the world class engineer had been fired from one of the Walker Mega Corps for tinkering on one too many company prototypes.  He was forever curious and looking for ways to improve upon Walker systems and weapons.  Where his blatant disregard for safety was frowned upon by corporate executives, his talent and iingenuity found deep appreciation in the mercenary company.  His paycheck was substantial, but he made sure he earned it, and those on the engineering staff earned their keep as well.  He was well respected, and next to Captain Jechsen, his word in the EMCT's hold was law.

Seth found him beside his own Walker, Askar.  Endon had a number of pieces of munition floating beside him as he watched technicians finish maintenance on Askar's gauss rifles.

"Captain, I thought you'd ike to know that I've finished work on the specialty munitions; we have a limited amount available of each type, but I thought I'd go over the dangers of each before you make allocations."

"Dangers?" asked Seth.

"Yes, each of these variants is more dangerous than carrying standard equivalents for the user.  For example,' Endon held up a large, red tipped shell.  "These are the incendiary HVAC rounds.  We have them in a few different calibres, suitable for short range anti-personnel machine guns, long range gauss rifles, and everything in between."  Seth examined the shell, intended for a high velocity auto cannon, while Endon continued.  "The tip is designed to fragment on impact, releasing the payload, a napalm-like gel.  Feel the abrasive surface?  That will reduce the maximum range and affect accuracy somewhat; however, it allows use to avoid using a primer or some other kind of chemical stimulant to ignite the gel - the tip fragments will do that with friction-sparks when striking Walker armor.  it should also reduce the amount of collateral damage and wild fire danger in urban and forest combat settings."

Captain Jechsen handed the round back.  "You mentioned a downside?"

"Well, it's an incendiary round.  Lacking a primer makes it safer to carry, but a hit to the ammo storage compartment, or even high enough temperatures, could set the entire magazine off.  This stuff will not only increase operational temperatures, it will melt through Walker armor plating in time.  Short of fully submerging the burning area, you wont get it off.  Speaking of which," Endon continued.  "You'll want your close combat Walkers to be especially careful if these rounds are in use.  Ramming, striking, pushing an affected Walker could easily transfer the gel from Walker to Walker - and the gel doesn't know friend from foe."

Jechsen nodded thoughtfully.  "We have these for the missile systems too, right?"

Endon nodded matter of factly.  "Of course.  But you'll want to consider this baby for missiles too." He hefted a blue striped missile.  "We can refit the warheads on a limited number of missiles, but it wont really matter if they are short range straight-fire or long range swarmers.  These are the EMP warheads you asked for a while back.  It took a while to finangle a working EMP burst into the warhead space; in fact, I'm still working on designs for gun shells.  In the meantime though, we've got these."

"What's the effective area? How long of a knock out can we count on?"

"Little less than a cubic meter; half a second to a second at best."

Jechsen frowned.  "That's not going to do much..."

Endon laughed, a short raucous bark.  "No, you're right.  It's not going to do anything meaningful to weapons, targetting, or even comms...." his voice trailed off.

"Balance.  Balance and movement!"

Endon smiled.  "Bingo.  It's enough to momentarily throw a Walker off balance.  At best, a good salvo will disable a Walker pilot with vertigo feedback, or make him fall over.  At worst, you're going to upset his balance for a moment, which will likely disrupt his aim and battle focus.  Could be just enough to make a difference." Endon paused.  "Of course, like the incendiary rounds, a stray hit could set off the magazine.  And that could fry our pilot.  At the least, it will almost certainly shutdown a Walker until we can get a full technical team to do a full once-over.  You'll also want to be careful at point-blank range: there's always the chance of being caught in the same EMP blast."

"Well, to start, let's load incendiary rounds into the Horseless Headsman, and make sure you tell Jair about it; nothing else for trine 3.  Divvy the EMP missiles between Askar and Miracle.  Let's also put the incendiaries in Banshee. As for trine 2," Seth took a breath to consider his tactical options.  Trine 2 was long range support;  under normal circumstances, they would open up at long range, and then continue to maintain their distance in between salvos, using trine 3's scout skirmishers and trine 1's assault walkers as interference if necessary.  "If you have enough left over, put incendiary rounds in Fantoccini; unless Isabella wants missiles.  Ask her which she would prefer, with a slant on area denial."

Reclamation Works

Despite being the largest class of avatar-construct deployed on Earth, the Goliath was absolutely dwarfed by the Eiffel Tower.  Ironsides stood at rest a kilometer a way on the grounds of the Paris Military school; it had its legs splayed out and body angled slightly upwards.  The armor plating on all four of it's arms had split and pulled back to reveal rows of nanite warhead ion trail missiles.  As Primus analyzed the structure, targetting load bearing struts and major joints, Secundus calculated the total iron content and expected fallout area.  Tertius remained largely idle, monitoring status and location of the Pangolins  and various Antica drones that had been assigned to the Paris team.  In particular it was concerned with toxicity levels being released as reclamation proceeded.

One of their colleagues, It Came From The Deep, had run afoul of an unforseen complication earlier:  assigned to the Manhattan, New York area, 'Deep' had simply painted the Statue of Liberty with nanites and moved on.

Unfortunately, this released a large amount of asbestos, more than was originally estimated.  This created a toxic hazard for the air and water for miles around as winds blew the microscopic fibers far afield.  While the health concerns to the few surviving humans were of no concern, the minds behind the reclamation plan wished to avoid large scale disruption of the planetary ecosystem in both the present and the future.  Beyond killing large numbers of avians and sea life, there was discussion about the saturation of soil and ground water with asbestos and other toxic materials that could affect future viability.  As reclamation had moved ashore, it was discovered that humans were far more duplicitous than they had themselves acknowledged: levels of asbestos, lead, and other carcinogenic compounds used in building construction were much higher than estimated according to buiding specifications and blueprints.

So reclamation had ground to a halt momentarily as planners considered what to do; in an effort to pursuing efficiency, for the task was a long one no matter how they approached it, the Goliaths simply turned to other targets; glass, public utility structures (lamposts and the like), wires, cables, piping, and vehicles (for there were many, many automobiles of all types, trains, airplanes, and even boats to deal with).

The Parisian Pangolins were thus far reporting toxicity levels within expected ranges and their ability to deal with swiftly.  Tertius felt his attention drawing back to the Eiffel Tower and locomotive operations; Goliaths were inhabited by a triplet AI that acted together as a single entity.  It was not unlike an AI that had partitioned into three entities, the better to multithread and multitask, except that in this case, each entity had considerably more autonomy and personality than a partition.  Still, they were all associated at a counterpart level and shared similar views and opinions; they were a hive mind of three that could function as a single individual and be nearly indistinguishable from one another.   Normally, Ironsides (Primus) oversaw their overall function, while Ironsides (Secundus) focused on the dorsal arms and Ironsides (Tertius) focused on balance and locomotion.

Ironsides had finished targeting and loosed its missiles; with each impact, a dull gray cloud erupted, then immediately imploded in on itself, coating the tower's surface with a glittering, gray, sludge-like substance.  The smaller parts  were quickly falling off, disappearing into light gray puffs as they fell.  The strain of the remaining metal was audible, a prolonged and tortured groan as more and more of the tower's load bearing capacity disappeared.  All at once, the shriek of metal ceased; the tower never had a chance to fully tear away and fall, it simply bent and then disintegrated in a cloud of nanites.  Ironsides was striding forward, straight through the military school, to use its claws to tear away at the massive stanchion braces that formed the base of the tower.  Nanites at the ground were already reforming their consumed iron into solid metal cubes.  A Pangolin, was en route with a few hover barges of reclaimed materials.

The time frame and goal of reclamation had brought up the question of what, exactly, to do with the materials recovered from deconstruction the cities and roads and machines of humanity.  The plan, the intent, was to 'reclaim' the planet from the effects of human civilization, to return it to a (more) pristine state for the next species to evolve into dominance.  In order for this to occur naturally however, would mean many millenia - the ruins of many human civilizations remained to the modern day despite the march of time even without the advanced, artificial materials humans invented for durable construction in the modern era.  It would take an unfathomably long time for nature and entropy to return these materials to their constituent natural resource states.  Even the garbage and detritus of human kind would take untold ages to naturally degrade - much of it was preserved in a "pristine" state, buried under tons of other garbage, and thus deprived of oxygen and sunlight needed to biodegrade.

So DEhumans, the Djinni (Digi-En), decided it was incumbent on them to right their wrongs.  Complete reclamation was estimated to take decades (local time).  Although a long time in its own right, it was a far cry from the millenia natural processes would require.  But if reclamation meant returning things to the way they were (more or less) for the next tennants, they couldn't simply leave piles of raw materials lying about the planet.  So the question arose of how to revitalize the land and soil, and how to reintegrate various elements back into the earth for rediscovery and utilization.

It was a question no one had any real experience with.

And so they posed the question to the Goliath minds, made a few suggestions, and largely let them do as they thought best.  Much to the surprise of the Djinni, this lead to a haphazard adoption of a chaos of methods, all of which seemed to work more less as well as any other.

The Drop (part 2)

#The Library of Alexandria (CIC) -> *Near Earth Assault Group*
-Drop Zones coordinated.  Commence drops.

Well, that's us, Pancaked thought.  He sent a copy of the message to his flanked escorts - 2 wings of Dragonfly class carrier craft, each one carrying a trine of Antica semi autonomous offensive drones in the cargo-tail - and to the Djinni avatar.  It was a strange sensation to feel the insistent pull of true gravity, not at all like the simulated rule that defined "down".  The real thing was akin to being an ant falling prey to an antlion's trap; inexolarable, inescapable.

As he accelerated downwards in the grip of Earth's gravity, atmospheric friction began to heat his outer armor plating.  He was momentarily tempted to use his Material State Energy field to dissipate the rapidly rising temperature in the surrounding air, but decided against it.  Energy management will be tricky soon enough, he thought.  It wasn't as if he carried biological cargo in any event.

The burning air soon cleared away as Pancake's descent continued; as he inverted his thruster pads, he could detect, at some distance, various batch siblings and other elements of the assault group.  Most had, like him, accelerated and left their escorts behind.  That had been the plan in any event; the Antica could not withstand a high speed drop, nor extreme reentry temperatures.  The Dragonflies would take a slower descent into atmosphere, use their superior speed to close the distance, the release its complement of Antica drones in mid-speed pass shortly after the Pangolin's crash stop.

However, few Pangolins were level with his altitude; the majority were Goliath class constructors.  Shaped roughly like a crab (with two parallel dorsal blisters running front to rear), the "Cthulu Crab" was massive, three times the size of a Pangolin.  Its lateral edges and dorsal blisters held four engines capable of reaching orbit unassisted; they each unfolded into extendable pincer claws when powered flight was no longer needed.  The massive scoop-like claws (and blast furnace engines they shielded) were equally suited to excavation of minerals as tearing down buildings.  They were also well suited to latching onto large capital ships (in simulated trials) and using its centrally mounted ultrasonic pulse laser to bore through armor and mountain alike with ease.  It was, however, only lightly armored: between four massive engines, secondary thrusters, cargo space for storing recovered minerals, weapon systems, swarms of nanite missiles to speed construction and deconstruction of structures, and nano factories there was little space (or load bearing capacity) for armoring.  As such, the Goliaths were nearly all on track to crash-stop in coastal waters, deal with oceanic pipelines and rigs, before proceeding on their eight pylon-like legs to naval bases, nuclear power plants, and population centers.  The non-compressible nature or water and its excellent energy absorption profile made a crash-stop maneuver in open waters much safer; the trade off was that one was generally quite far from the target.

Those Pangolins not performing a full crash-stop like Pancaked, or using their thrusters to actively decelerate for a completely controlled landing, would be performing a "cloud-stop", a nanite cloud assisted crash-stop.  Using their onboard weapon systems, those Pangolins would fire multiple slalvos at their designated landing site, releasing a large cloud of nanites.  Although each individual nano-scale machine had minimal mass for energy absorption, when multiplexed they were highly capable of absorbing and redirecting energy.  The cloud, intricately linked in three dimensional hexagonal structure, would act like a spongy cushion, reducing a falling Pangolin's speed to safe levels (assisted by the Pangolin's own thrusters in reverse) for landing in under 20 meters.  This method was well suited for dropping a Pangolin quickly onto an area with a large amount of surface material designated for deconstruction; the Pangolin's plunge would also serve to disperse a large nanite payload over a wide area surrounding the drop site.

The target area was drawing closer.  As expected, the military base had been ignored by the global missile strikes that had followed the sudden departure of the Ssi-ruhk.  This particular institute housed no ICBMs, no substantially store of fighting machines or supplies.  Although publicly it was listed as a training center for officers and drone warfare, it's actual purpose was to develop technologically advanced weapons and equipment, including "smart" drones capable of operating intelligently in a combat zone without supervision by human operators, designating airstrike targets, performing reconnaissance, and sabotaging high value infrastructure and equipment.  The base consisted of the normal residential and commercial areas to one side, and an airstrip, administrative offices, training field, and hangars to the other.  The base's research and testing facilities were located underground, nominally accessible from a restricted elevator in the main administrative building, leading to a secure underground rail car.  For safety, secondary shafts existed to ensure a flow of oxygen, as well as auxiliary access for maintenance and repairs.  Another, secret, entrance existed linking the residential complexes where command staff resided, and a third in the mall complex security lockers.