A Time of Crisis: Chapter 24
Chapter 24, icon by Chaos Croc
Chapter 24 New Bases
Two months have passed since Crisis had her eventful trip at New Hope City. Debates amongst those allied with Dromaeosa, Crisis has been getting her first big break since the war turned in her favor...
“Welcome to the city of Dralk,” says a black and purple scaled female bipedal anthropomorphic dragon, her wings folded behind her, the entire width of her wings spans from just a foot or so above the ground to a half a foot taller than their heads, and that includes the two duel horns protruding from the back of her skull.
Crisis steps from the back of the truck followed by Sasha, Arissa, Shasi, and lastly Francis. Before them is a city in the middle of a massive repairing project. Dozens of the city’s buildings are completely bombed out, rubble litters the streets, as bulldozers work around the clock make way for the trucks filled with members of the Draconic army, as well as select members of Crisis and Dromaeosa armies.
“It is a fixer upper, but it’ll do nicely,” comments Crisis.
“It’s not like they’ll give us a good city to be transformed into one of your robotic wonders,” remarks Shasi.
“This is true, shame Joshua and Captain Andreas couldn’t come. I thought they’d enjoy seeing another city come under my control,” says Crisis with a smirk.
“Under your control commanded directly by proxies that are approved by General Raszer and myself.” interjects Francis.
“Yes, how could I forget such a lovely detail, it was made painfully clear when we set up the first base in the shark’s home country to counter act the kidnappings and attacks Croc’s forces have made down there. Apparently they are trying to find new ways to expand outside of our country’s boarders and I intend to stop him at every turn,” replies Crisis as the group walks farther away from the set of trucks, the sound of people of the construction growing louder and echoing against the buildings, “Though remind me why it has to be done this way?”
“General Raszer doesn’t want you to spread yourself too thin. Your primary function is to defeat Chaos Croc by any means necessary that does not involve harming our nation. You can’t waste all your efforts on every movement and every roboticization, every build project to expand your army, but you aren’t designed or programmed to...”
“To know who would be best to delegate my decisions. Yes, I remember,” sighs Crisis.
“Were you expecting my answer to change?” asks Francis.
“Of course not...” replies Crisis as the dragon leads them into a nearby abandon factory, dust kicks up as Crisis walks in, the wooden planks that cover the ground creak under the weight of Crisis’ metallic footsteps.
“What do you think about this place to set up the chambers?” asks the dragon.
“I think it would do quite nicely, what do you think Francis? You’re the one who’s in charge of approving the location before I help start the installation of the pods and maintenance arrays.”
“I’ll have to look at the building plans, but after seeing other parts of this city during my first visit, this one is very promising, and from what I hear many dragons are eager to defend their homeland in any way that is necessary,” replies Francis as he turns his attention to the dragon guide. “That is what I always liked about you dragons, always so eager serve your country and even after all these years you’re still our strongest allies,” states Francis.
“You forget of our long life spans, many of us are still around from those times, such as myself.”
“Right, average life expectancy of two hundred and fifty.”
“Two hundred and fifty seven actually,” she replies.
“My apologies,” says Francis with a smirk, “Crisis, you’re in charge of the installation of the maintenance facility, why don’t you go do that? The location that fit your specifications has been found and the equipment should be arriving now.”
“Glad you could tell me in advance... I’ll get that started, the sooner we get this place underway the sooner I can return to my primary duties,” replies Crisis.
“Another will meet you outside of the building to take you to the location,” says the dragoness as she pulls up a walk-talkie that is strapped to her waist and contacts said person to assist Crisis, “Good move to get rid of her,” she says once Crisis is gone her voice taking on a more serious tone.
“She’s technically in charge, but she is far from the one in control,” remarks Francis.
“It’s been a long time hasn’t it?” she asks.
“Thirty years at least... I wasn’t much a fan to have you see me in my old age while you still look the same you did back then,” replies Francis.
“But being a machine is fine?” she asks.
“Was this or rot away and die, General Raszer made joining Crisis’ army quite inviting.”
“Speaking of which how is General Raszer?”
“I have a feeling you aren’t speaking of his health.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“He’s no Dramal, but that’s not a bad thing.”
“You’d be one to know.”
“Somewhat, my time that with the higher ranking officials of that time was brief. Times were good but that was until that battle at New Hope City and it went downhill from there, Dramal’s paranoid took over...” states Francis with a soft growl.
“Aye I remember… so back to my original question.”
“In many ways he’s like Dramal, he has drive for success, he’s an orator, good at the political game but there is one thing that he has that Dramal never had.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s a tactician, wasn’t for his brilliance it been impossible for us to be here today.”
“M superiors have noted how he’s turned the tide of the war through his tactical genius and willingness to take risks, such as with this Crisis project.”
“He’s also one not to forget those that provided him aid, such as when your country was only half taken by Croc, and ours down to the last mountainous strong holds, you still provided us with much needed aid till the roads connecting our two countries were severed.”
“With these new bases command is hoping for more joint operations in the future.”
“Sounds good, and I’m sure general Raszer would like.”
“So tell me, how does it feel being a machine?”
“It has ups, it has down, more ups than downs to be honest.”
“What’s some of the downs?”
“I have to report to that Crisis who is greener than her metallic skin. Her soul focus is the destruction of Croc, so she can’t see anything but that. Granted she has done some interesting feats with what she has the city of Rioas as one example but she thinks she knows more than she does. She’s in her position only because she was made to do that job. She was given it and not earned it.”
“Always the case isn’t it?”
“Some things never change, but she two good aspects going for her that General Raszer really likes, and because of that, I think is why she still is in the position she is now.”
“And what are those?”
“She has gets the job done, and she’s controllable.”
Meanwhile at the same time this conversation took place…
“I can’t believe he did that to me, who does he think he is? I run the show, not him,” growls Crisis.
“Relax, General Raszer has given him control over parts of these projects, but it doesn’t mean you’re not the one in charge of your army, but you can’t do everything,” explains Sasha.
“She’s right, that’s why you have us in charge of your research and development team,” says Shasi.
“Still, I don’t like his attitude, he makes me wish I did more… character adjustment on those I roboticize, but then I think I’ll be too much like Croc… I don’t want to become what I was built to destroy,” sighs Crisis as the group is greeted by a large red dragon male, dressed in military uniform, he quickly begins to escort Crisis’ group to the designated building.
“How long do you think it’ll take to install the automated maintenance array?” asks Arissa.
“Hopefully it shouldn’t take too long, if everything is here it’ll only take a day,” replies Crisis.
“I hope so.” says Arissa.
“So how does this maintenance array work?” asks the dragon.
“It’s just a facility that will make sure the basic wear and tear is repaired. Eventually we hope to figure how to build it into ourselves but so far any idea how to do that affectively is beyond us,” replies Arissa.
“Currently, we know the technology exists, since I’m able to last the longest without maintenance,” replies Crisis.
“So what, you’ll take machines apart do your fixes and put them back together?” he asks.
“Sometimes, we try to avoid that when we can, you know how squeamish people can get going from being an organic to mechanical, the idea of being able to be taken apart and still be fine is unsettling,” remarks Arissa.
“I don’t find it so bad, quite fun myself,” replies Shasi.
“I couldn’t agree more, I always feel invigorated after a good maintenance,” replies Crisis.
“Here’s the building that is going to be retrofitted to be your maintenance faclity,” says the dragon as the building before them has loads of equipment being moved into the building, much of the equipment still in their packing boxes. Most of the movers are draconic in nature, but several of Crisis’ machines are there assisting moving the equipment in and getting some of the placement ready for installation. “I’ll leave you machines to your construction project.”
“Thanks for showing us the way,” replies Crisis as the group heads to the building.
“I see you didn’t tell him exactly how we do the normal maintenance,” comments Shasi.
“Yeah, nanites… many organics haven’t had a good experience with nanites thanks to Croc, we aren’t going to lie about it but not going to make it public knowledge either, it be a public relations nightmare,” explains Crisis.
“This is very true, and the more times we build these facilities the better we are at making and understanding Croc’s technology,” comments Arissa.
“Speaking of which, since we’ve made some strides on better understanding his nanites technology, we’ve improved some counter measures to his technology,” Shasi informs.
“Really?” asks Crisis, “Why wasn’t I told of this before?”
“At the moment I think we can possible neutralize Croc’s nanites at least for a little while before his nanites overrun ours. He’ll still have any home field advantage but we’ll be able to fight longer without any side effects, and as to why? I wanted to do more testing before reporting it to you, and as we left I got the data, and there hasn’t been a good moment to bring it up.”
“That’s alright, and I’ll want these defensive measures ready for the attack on Veloci, whenever that is…”
“We’ll retake the city soon, if the last offensive pans out. We’ll have the city surrounded and it’ll just be a matter of time till it falls,” states Sasha. The group entering the building and quickly getting to work to get the facility up and running, meanwhile Croc was just being informed about that very same offensive…
“As of thirty minutes ago, the two raptor armies both with elements of Crisis’ troops made contact with each other. They’ve completely cut off our forces from the city on the planet,” explains Ko as a holographic model of the battlefield and a hundred square mile radius around the city.
“And?” asks Croc as he looks at the report, he leans back in his chair nonchalant like.
“This is one of your favorite cities from the planet, that’s why we’re defending it so furiously for you, shouldn’t you be more concerned? The current plan is to counter attack to blunt their spearhead and give us some more breathing room. With a coordinated counter offensive we should be able to break this encirclement in now time.”
“I’m not concerned.”
“How can you not be concerned?”
“Are the gates up and running?”
“Ah yes, the gates were made active last week, but they won’t be able to affectively support the city’s defenses if they’re under constant attack on all sides.”
“We’ll be fine, the gates will provide exactly what I need. Speaking of which how goes the progress on operation Mind Sweeper?”
“Fine Croc, we’ve obtained new subjects recently and begun testing various methods to make them loyal servants.”
“Excellent, now that is over, why don’t you put on the number that you know I like and meet me in my chambers in a half an hour,” orders Croc with a smirk.
“As you wish sir,” sighs Ko.