1518 April 29 2015 [Local Calendar]
Officer Quarters, UNSC Full Moon
Dark Side of the Moon
Leaving Robins room a few hours later, I take a moment to adjust myself before walking towards the bridge wanting to get an update. As I walk through the halls I begin to think about how disconcerting it was to see the same face repeatedly, so with a mental command I pull up the description for the crew production:
Catch-A-Ride Crew Production Program:
Your basic manpower problems are over. Now your rides come with a full crew of company-issued clones, Each one is equivalent to a T2 waifu and comes with all the skills needed to properly maintain and repair your ride, while also being capable of rapidly acclimating to any upgrades that may be done. Combat-wise they are equal to the average soldier in a modern professional military and may require further training to be an effective combat force in a given alternate world.
All clones come with a demi-tattoo, establishing them as yours. See the Offspring section for details. They will not provide points should a higher binding be applied.
These clones initially lack their own sense of identity, but over time will come to develop their own unique personalities, interests and dislikes, as well deciding names for themselves, if they have not been given one. This process is hastened via interactions with yourself and your waifus, even influencing their own development.
For exceptionally large vehicles, typically those that cost 300 credits or more, this perk will be applied for free. If you have such a vehicle, a clone production facility will be integrated into the ship so you may replace your losses manually. This facility may also be used for other cloning programs if necessary. Otherwise, new replacement crew members will be shipped to you like any other purchased waifu.
Now that I'm reading this, it just states that they're clones, not that they all have to be clones of the same person. Quickly looking into the clone production systems that I had only looked into once I find the total number of presets to be 51,372. Getting a smirk on my face I immediately set the entire technical crew to be a random clone in that range while sending out orders to Serina to move all current technical crew into ground base operations and logistics positions once the new set of clones are brought up to speed on the systems.
Walking onto the bridge I quickly cut off the bridge crew from snapping to attention and away from their stations, "Carry on." I order as I stop at the central tactical table. "Serina, give me an update on what you've been up to while I've been groundside."
"Sir, while you've been away we've mined nearly 100 tons of raw material in the local asteroid belt. Luckily I have a record of all the mineral rich rocks from the early stages of human expansion into space nearly 450 years ago, from my universe's perspective anyway." She explained, displaying the relevant data and a side by side comparison to the asteroids that they had surveyed in the past week. "As you can see, not all elements are present, that being said the only ones that aren't are those used for our slipspace drives and AI cores, though we have found trace elements of the crystalline structure that we normally use for the cores. I theorize that given another 100 years of hard radiation from the sun we would have a large amount of the crystals in question."
Nodding my head I look at the numbers displayed before me. "Very good, first of all I want you to try to grow those crystals in a controlled environment, second I want you to prioritize the construction of sealed environment suits such as the ODST and army recon armors, the next world we will be visiting will have an abundance of flood-like organisms and I want our troops to be as protected as possible, on that note I would like you to construct a MJOLNIR MK 6 armor set for me, don't worry about the bells and whistles, our next true step should have a plethora of tech to kit out a whole new suit. How is the reverse engineering of the Alterra tech that Robin brought with her going?"
With a nod Serina replaced the comparison with several technical displays that showed the multiple different handheld Alterra devices, as the Habitat Builder and the Mobile Vehicle Bay were brought to the front, the AI answered the question. "The scanning and documentation of these devices is complete, however we are lacking in a few key materials to create some of the most important components for these, specifically the high speed building ability of these two devices as well as the fabrication modules seems to require a highly complex series of focusing lenses and energy projection to assemble a complex structure from raw materials, coincidentally these lenses are made from an almost identical amount and variety of crystal as a smart AI core. I assume that these specific devices are the reason that you asked for this particular update?" After receiving a confirmation nod from me she continued. "Then I would guess that your interest in these is to streamline the production of weapons, ammunition, and vehicles." Another nod. "I've crunched the numbers, to create a large enough number of vehicle bay equivalent units to make a difference we could create cores for 24 dumb AIs or 8 smart. If you want to, we can repurpose one of the two groundside vehicle bays and use that to start with production, but we're going to need a much larger deposit of crystals to get it done." She finished by displaying the modified vehicle bay in the projection.
"Okay, the first order of business is to find more crystals. Is there another, I don't know if it's the right word, but evolution of the crystals due to radiation?" After Serina shakes her head in the negative, I press forward. "Okay, how about any deposits in the outer system?"
Giving a nod my AI companion pulled up a display of the solar system. "There we might be in luck, there were two deposits found in orbit around Io and Europa, probably relatively small asteroids that got caught in their gravity well." As she spoke, two dots in orbit around Jupiter lit up. "But there was an even larger deposit found among Saturn's rings, however that one is going to be more difficult to find as it was a handful of average sized asteroids in a much larger area of space hidden among other relatively useless asteroids." She ends punctuating her statement by highlighting the beautiful rings around the gas giant in question.
"Based on the old records, how much would the asteroids over Jupiter cover for our current project?" I ask, trying not to get caught up in the wonder of actually discussing space mining and going to these celestial giants that I grew up wanting to see.
"Between the two we could construct the vehicle bay, one smart AI core, and 5 cores for dumb AIs."
With a nod of approval I give my orders. "Alright, your first priority will be to go collect those that are in orbit of Io and Europa, if there's time after that, begin searching for the deposits in the rings, any questions?"
With a resolute shake of the head she responds. "No sir."
"On that note let's just make my title among the ranks Commander just so that it's less confusing for everyone involved." After receiving a nod from the woman I moved onto my next question. "How're the new girls handling things?" I ask with trepidation.
Serina let out a sigh. "You can't expect them to be happy to find out that they've been enslaved by a multiverse traveling man whose seemingly main purpose is to create a harem of the most beautiful women in the multiverse. Give them time, they'll come around."
With a nod I turn to leave. "Thank you Serina, please let me know if anything happens that requires my personal attention." As I walk through the halls lost in my own thoughts I try to slot some things into place for my own sanity if nothing else. Something that I'll probably have to do in order to move forward is try to rope Kuroko and Doppel into my own personal pyramid scheme and try to get the stamps as quickly as possible in an attempt to make the jump sooner rather than later. I will probably have to make concessions with them to actually do it but that shouldn't be too difficult in theory. I halt in the middle of my stride, a growing sense of dread taking root in my gut. Fuck, I just invoked Murphy.
Now constantly looking over my shoulder, figuratively not literally, for the ghost of jinxing future I make my way to the observation deck where I hope to get my thoughts in order before meeting my two newest companions. Unfortunately I should have been looking for my metaphorical foe forward and not over my shoulder.
As I walk onto the observation deck I see Kuroko, Doppel, and Kasumi leaning against the railing that rimmed the room. Deciding to face the music, I move forward and lean against the rail just to Kuroko's left and stare out at the view of the Earth rising over the moon's cratered surface. "So…… what do you think?"
She let out an exasperated scoff. "Of the ship? Or do you mean the literal thousands of men that are exact duplicates of each other? Or are you perhaps talking about the fact that you seem to be able to travel the multiverse?"
Doppel leaned down on her forearms. "Don't forget about the part where his goal in the multiverse is to enslave as many people as he can and that we've already been ensnared." She added helpfully.
Looking sheepish I shrug. "I was actually talking about this view. Figured I'd start small and work my way up to the heavy topics."
Letting out a sigh, Kuroko lowered her head. Doppel on the other hand spoke up. "I wish I had a camera to capture this sight."
"This sight does almost make getting kidnapped by you worth it." Kuroko said after a brief pause. Letting another silence fall over them for a few minutes, the Agent broke it after the tension started to build again. "So what now?"
Releasing the longest suffering sigh that I could, I dropped my head and closed my eyes before answering the question, partially because I needed to figure that out myself. "Personally, I'd like to try to get everything done and taken care of as soon as possible, and to do that I'm going to need help from both of you." After getting a confused look from the native women I explained. "In order to move on to the next multiverse I have to complete an assigned task from my benefactor, and since you don't quite have a Demon Lord to slay or a hero to cast down my task is literally just to get numbers." Pausing for a moment to think about my mission I give her the counts I need. "As of right now I need one tier six capture, two tier five, I'm set on tier four, two more tier three, five tier two, and a whopping six tier ones. And before you ask, you and the team are the only ones that I've captured." Getting another blank stare from them in response to my admission. After a brief but awkward silence I continue. "So what I need your help with is getting a meeting with 16 girls of varying degrees of importance and we can move on, if after that you want nothing more to do with all of this then I will accept your decision. That being said, I would like for you to come along on this crazy adventure." I say with a slight smile before glancing at my watch that I had set for Tokyo standard. "Okay, so it's 1637 Tokyo Standard Time, we have plenty of time to get back before dark so I leave it to the two of you: we can stay up here for the night, you will get private guest rooms, and a killer view, or we can take the 4 Hour flight back groundside and you can sleep in your own bed and we can be to work tomorrow morning. Either way you will have plenty of time to sort out your thoughts and make your choices." Turning to the third woman who had been looking out at a world that hadn't had so few artificial satellites in over a century, I addressed her. "Kasumi, regardless of their decision, find them a guest room. I believe that some of the lower officers quarters have two bunks that should work for now." Glancing at the two in question, I continue. "This way you'll have a private room to talk about what you want to do, however if you do want to go back tonight you should decide sooner than later, we are going to have to do some work tomorrow and I don't have any desire to spend half the night flying back."
Turning around I make my way back to the elevator. Man, I've been talking way too much today. I need some water, or I wonder if we have that green apple Mountain Dew. Lost in my own mind I make my way to the mess hall.
1737 April 29 2015 [Local Calendar]
Stealth Pelican, leaving UNSC Full Moon
Dark Side of the Moon
In the end it seems that my comment about sleeping in their own bed was what made up their minds, but now I have to deal with the rather scary look in their eyes, a look of resolution and determination. It seems that they had made some kind of decision.
"Fred, we've decided that we're going to assist you in completing your task." Kuroko said, leaning towards me while knitting her fingers together.
"That being said, we do have a few conditions." Doppel started before holding up one finger. "One: you can't force any other people to take the stamp themselves, for most people just use the cloning feature you got, we don't want to break up families."
"Secondly:" The other woman picked up where her comrade left off. "We would like Kasumi to stop killing." At my raised eyebrow she answered the unasked question. "While we were talking she told us what she'd been up to for you."
Looking at the thief and getting a nod from her I sigh and turn back. "Those are both easy enough to accept, is there anything else?"
The women looked at each other for a moment before Kuroko nodded. "Yes, one more thing. We will take the time before you finish your task to decide whether or not we're going to leave with you."
I look down at the plating on the ground before nodding in acceptance. "I don't like it but it's your choice to make."
What followed after was four hours of small talk and napping. The dropship dropped us off where we had been picking up, on my apartment balcony. Heading inside we checked the phones of the two MON members to find a plethora of texts and calls from the rest of the team all day with the last one to Kuroko having arrived five minutes ago from Zombina stating that if she didn't respond that they would assume that I had killed them, and assault the apartment in order to avenge them.
"You might want let them know that I'm not a fan of assisted suicides." I slowly deadpan to Kuroko, as I grab a drink from under the counter. After receiving a semi-forced smile from the woman, and taking a gulp of the watermelon flavored caffeinated soft drink in my hand, I continue. "The two of you should really get home, it's late and we have a lot of work to get started on tomorrow morning."
After a nod from the two, they turned and left while Kuroko seemed to be making a call, I soon realized that it was Zombina as even from the elevators slightly down the hall I heard the sound of raucous laughter that bordered on hysterical. Yep, that woman is a verifiable nut-job.
0830 April 30 2015 [Local Calendar]
Cultural Exchange Coordination Office
Japan
With high hopes that today would be better than yesterday I push open the door to the office to find a similar yet completely different scene playing out before me. Zombina, Tionishia, and Manako were staring dumbfounded at the sight of Kuroko and Doppel working together rather closely and efficiently on what I recognize to be the list of possible captures.
"Big man," Zombina said quietly, leaning towards me while refusing to take her eyes off of her co-workers. "How the hell did you manage this? It's like yesterday was nothing but a fever dream." She asked with a high degree of suspicion.
"I remember reading an article somewhere about how to deal with rambunctious children, especially when there's two of them that are going at each other. There's two main lines of thought: first is that you duct tape the offenders together to force cooperation. Second is to lock them in a room and let them burn off the bad blood by letting them fight it out. I will leave it up to your very…" I look the almost woman up and down before finishing my sentence. "Active imagination to decide which method I used but know that I can neither confirm nor deny any guesses you may have because answering may or may not incriminate me with the eyes of the exchange."
Before she could pick her jaw up off the floor, which was thankfully a metaphor this time, I walked towards my companions and gave them a small smile. "So," I began looking between them. "Where do we begin?"
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A/N: hello all sorry for the delay but I have been so overwhelmed with life lately and have not had any excess energy for writing and so I apologize. Next chapter is mainly going to be a montage of moments over a couple weeks' time and it will end with a jump. That's all for now, thank you all for your support, and I'll see you in the next chapter.
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