Alpha Strike: [An interstellar Weapon Platform’s Guide to being a Dungeon Core] (Book 2 title)

 

Movement drew Gan’s attention back to the man in his arms. Yutu moaned and tried to sit up, but a gentle hand on his shoulder pressed him back down. A hard cough wracked the smaller man’s body, reopening his wound as fresh blood gurgled. The medicine Gan has used has stopped the bleeding somewhat, but it was meant for minor bite wounds and cuts. Not… not something like this.

At most, it would prolong his suffering. What could he do?! Maybe if… no, he didn’t know how to do that… what if… no, not that either… The Caravan! Gan’s eyes snapped toward the path in the grass the others had fled down. If… if he could get Grassreader Kallik, maybe she—

“G—cough—Gan, stop….”

Gan broke from his planning with a jerk and turned to his friend.

“H-hey Yutu, don’t speak. Save your strength. We’ve got to get you to the Grassreader. Ya, I’m sure she can—”

Yutu cut him off, his voice hard.

“No. Don’t—cough—don’t do this to yourself. We both know I’d not make the trip.”

Gan answered back,

“Yutu, no, I can build a gurney, i-it just tak—”

“Ganbaatar!”

Yutu coughed violently, his face contorting in pain. After a long moment, Yutu opened his eyes, quickly paling face slick with sweat.

“Ganbaatar. You can’t. You don’t have time… they’re still out there, Gan. He’s still out there.”

Yutu took a moment to catch his breath before continuing.

“Lead those two to the others before the Beast Lord finds them….”

Yutu nodded to the two figures standing behind Gan. Gan briefly turned to them before returning to Yutu as the man continued.

“… please, Gan. You’re their only hope. You must leave me, or you won’t make it in time.”

Gan shook his head, his tears flowing freely as he responded.

“Yutu, don’t… I—”

Again, Yutu cut him off.

“Just… tell Zaya I’m sorry, will you?”

Then Yutu’s eyes rolled back, and he became limp. Gan panicked, and he yelled.

“Yutu? Yutu!”

But Yutu had already leaned back, his eyes closed. He was still breathing, to Gan’s relief, but he was out of medical powder, and Yutu was growing pale. In his mind, he knew the smaller man was right. It would take time to build a gurney that could carry Yutu, and even if he did, the man wouldn’t survive the trip. Worse, he would slow the already crippled Gan down further, and they might not make it in time to save the others.

Gan gently laid his friend on the ground with shaking hands and stood. He stepped away, staring off into the distance. Gan was torn; he knew the right answer, but could he really do it? Could he abandon Yutu? Even if they saved the others, could he ever look Zaya in the eyes again? This was her oathbrother, a bond as close as blood. She would have every right to despise him for the rest of their lives.

A noise from behind prompted Gan to turn back around. The Akh’lut pup stood over Yutu, whimpering softly. With things finally calm, he had time to look at the pup properly. Gan could tell it was young, despite its massive size. He doubted she was even awakened yet, given some of her mannerisms. Not that he’d ever met an Akh’lut, of course, but as someone borne in the Radiant Sea, Gan was taught about the guardians of the prairies from a young age. The Slatewalkers might answer to the Jadewalkers and the Jadewalkers to the Council of Cities, but the council answered to the Akh’lut.

Now that he thought about it, what was such a young pup doing all alone? The Akh’lut never let their unawaked youth away from their pods. The strange metal Spirit beast that accompanied her was just as much of a mystery. He’d never heard of the Akh’lut allowing anyone near their children, let alone guarded by another species. Gan knew there was more going on here, but he didn’t have the time to wonder what. Instead, he approached the pup and her protector, stopping a respectful distance away as they stood over Yutu.

He took a deep breath, fell to his knees, and placed his head against the ground in a formal kowtow. When he spoke, it was with the same formal tone he’d heard the village leaders use when speaking to the Jadewalker emissaries.

“Your Majesty and Lord Protector! This humble one thanks you for your timely rescue. Without your intervention, this one would not be here to see another sunrise.”

He paused, letting his words linger. As she was unawakened, he doubted the Akh’lut pup could fully understand what he was saying, but her guardian no doubt could. Besides, everyone liked a little bootlicking. He continued after a moment, head still on the ground.

“It may be presumptuous of me, but I ask for one more favor of Your Majesty. My companion and I are only a few of the group who the Grassbreakers attacked. We stayed behind to buy time for the others to escape.”

Gan looked up and pointed in the direction the rest had fled.

“Now that you’ve chased away the foul Beast Lord, I fear he’ll go after them next. Please, I beg of you, save them!”

Gan slammed his head back to the ground with an audible thump. He could feel his heart racing in his chest. He knew he was taking a risk. If the Akh’lut wanted to, or her protector took offense, they could just as easily kill him as Kusanagi could have. No, even easier; Kusanagi was a criminal and villain. All of their deaths would be avenged, even if it took time. But if these two wanted Gan dead because of some perceived offense, his family, and even the Jadewalkers, could do nothing but sigh and shake their heads.

Time seemed to stretch as he waited in silence, head bowed before light footsteps caused him to raise his head. Only years of training stopped him from jerking back when he came face to face with the fierce gaze of the Akh’lut pup, only inches away. The Spirit beast tilted her head at him, the eyes of a predator staring into his soul as if to judge its worth.

Then, with a happy yip, she… licked his face?

The large, pink tongue swept across one side of his face, clearing it of dried blood and fresh tears before the pup gave another yip and bounded back toward Yutu in a very puppy-like manner.

Gan could only stare, mouth open wide, unsure if that was a proper answer or if the child was too young to understand. The pup stopped at Yutu and nudged his still form, nudging him and whimpering. She then turned to the giant metal Spirit beast and gave several sharp, clicking barks.

Her protector turned to her at the sound and looked down at Yutu with its glowing red eyes. It stared in silence for a moment before it emitted a strange wave of red light that swept up and down the length of the Yutu’s body. When the light stopped, it stood and touched the bottom of its “head” with one of the smaller front legs, pulling the appendage down, then back up in a rhythmic motion. It was an oddly human gesture that vaguely reminded Gan of the old Guardian instructor who would stroke his long beard when observing the recruits.

A moment passed, and the metal Spirit beast approached Yutu. Gan’s heart lept into his throat. Had the protector judged Yutu as a liability and would end his suffering? Part of Gan wanted to stand and stop it, but another part of him knew it was the best course of action, even if he couldn’t do it himself. Instead, he squeezed his eyes tight and turned his head away.

A hissing sound made Gan look back, and he opened his eyes just in time to see the metal Spirit beast applying a mysterious white foam over Yutu’s wound. The foam puffed but quickly deflated, turning into a thick, fabric-like cover that sealed the wound completely. Gan then watched, openmouthed, as one of the protector’s “fingers” elongated until it reached Yutu’s arm, where it gently pressed into it.

Yutu gasped as shaking coughs expelled blood from his lungs. Gan stood with little thought and rushed to the other man’s side.

“Yutu!”

But by the time Gan arrived at his side, Yutu had already gone silent. When the protector removed its finger, Gan noticed a small, glowing, pebble-sized welt quickly shrinking under Yutu’s skin. From here, a cyan glow radiated out, spreading through Yutu’s veins at a visible rate. He didn’t know what the protector had done, but Yutu’s steady breathing and pain-free face nearly made the young man sob.

Gan looked up at the protector to thank it but yelped in surprise as several long tentacle-like fingers wrapped themselves around him and Yutu, effortlessly lifting them into the air and placing them in a large box that magically rose from the protector’s back. Gan was still struggling to process what was happening when the protector turned and made its way toward the path the others cleared as they escaped.

Soon, they were racing through the prairies at blistering speeds, a happily yipping Akh’lut pup swimming through the earth at their side.

As the heavy wind dried the tears from his face, Gan could only stare off into the distance, praying they made it in time.

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Alpha’s point of view (underline)

Alpha was still kicking himself for letting the giant Penguin escape. He shouldn’t have been this sloppy. Sloppy soldiers died, often suddenly and horrifically. He could blame it on the damage to his core, but some part of him knew the truth.

He was scared.

It was one thing to be cut off from the Federation and back up. He could even deal with losing all his supplies. This wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. No, what scared Alpha the most was how… unpredictable things had been recently. Sure, he knew how the media portrayed him like he was some embodiment of chaos and disorder.

But at the end of the day, Alpha was an AI.

He could be that way because he could think logically. People, events, reactions, they were predictable. They followed patterns that could be charted and measured. He could push the buttons he did because he knew how people would react. Even on worlds with no prior Federation contact, there were patterns he could exploit; there were only so many ways to set up a data network, sapients kept their military and civilians separate mostly, and life typically evolved to fill certain roles and follow certain rules.

Of course, there were variations and exceptions, but they were few and far between.

But chickens didn’t fire giant lasers, penguins didn’t swim through the ground, and primitive humans couldn’t generate class-3 spatial anomaly out of nowhere! Sure, some of those things could be done by the rare Esper, but what were the chances of every lifeform on the planet being an Esper?

So yes, Alpha was scared.

At only a few years shy of 700, Alpha couldn’t even be called middle-aged by Federation standards, where the typical civilian could easily live to be 2,000, let alone an immortal race like Sapient AIs. Couple that with the fact that Sapient AI aged mentally far slower than biologicals, and Alpha always understood he still had a long way to go.

But recently, He’d felt like he had hit a rut. Go on missions, conquer worlds, relax, troll General Haldorðr, run from Si’dia, rinse, and repeat.

By all standards, it was a good life. But as the centuries dragged on, he felt increasingly like it was all just the “same.” It got so bad he could predict how someone would respond to him within seconds. Maybe this was something all AI struggled with, but he’d never thought to ask his seniors. If it was, they’d all found some way to at least cope. Articulate had her constant concert touring and diplomacy missions. World Break always had some new project or another he was working on. Terraform had thousands of worlds she constantly monitored and adjusted, with more added every year.

As for [SEAU] - 03, Execute… Alpha wasn’t really sure. That one had always been a mystery, even to his peers. But he had to have something, right? It wasn’t like he just sat around all day, watching people, right? That would be a little…

Alpha involuntarily shuttered, like cold eyes had passed over him.

Then there was him. It wasn’t like Alpha didn’t have any hobbies! He had plenty! Yet none of them ever really “clicked” for him quite like how it had for the others.

But this! This was new! This was something unexpected and something he couldn’t quite predict.

That scared him on some primal level he didn’t know he had. But it also excited him. It lit in him a fire he’d not felt since his first set of missions. Some child-like part of him couldn’t help but wait for the next big baddy to show themselves. What would it be this time?!

A dragon? Some giant tiger with wings? A DUCK?!

It was Snowball’s whimpering that pulled Alpha from his ruminations. The scene in front of Alpha finally registered as he looked down at the two young humans before him. If the chicken hadn’t been enough confirmation that this world had at least some previous Federation contact, this would have been. While not the most numerous of Federation species, humans were easily in the top ten; after all, being one of the 4 founding species came with its perks. Couple that with the First and Second Federation’s extensive (sometimes aggressive) expansion policies, humanity could be found on nearly 1 out of 6 reclaimed worlds.

Or at least some form of them.

Alpha was used to having people bow to him, though something about this instance didn’t sit well with him. Maybe it was obvious desperation in the young man’s voice, even if he couldn’t understand a word yet. Or maybe it Snowball’s concern rubbed off on him a bit. Either way, some quick scouting in the direction the young man pointed with a [Wasp] drone and a bit of deductive reasoning made the young man’s request easy enough to understand.

Alpha contemplated what to do. On the one hand, he had someone he could extract information from, which had been the plan all along. Was it worth the cost of supplies to do more?

On the other hand, Alpha knew extracting any information would be difficult if he ignored the man’s request. Goodwill went a long way in getting what you wanted, while ill-will made it much harder. More data points would also speed up his intel gathering.

With that, though, Alpha performed some quick first aid on the injured man, gathered them both up, and headed off in that direction, his [Wasps] scouting ahead.

God, he hated escort missions…

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Author’s notes: I experimented with thoughts of letting Yutu die, since that would make for decent character progression/struggle for Gan, but I couldn’t honestly think of a good enough reason to make it believable. More so since he’s in not that worse of a state than Snowball was before.

I wanted to explain a bit more about that, but ran out of time, so I’ll have to save it for the next chapter.

Remember, the next chapter comes out on Wednesday, not Thursday this time, so look for it!