Our outpost was growing rapidly, so much so that over the course of three days it was virtually unrecognizable from what we’d seen before. I could call it a city, more or less, one devoted to the utilities and needs of the Legion, a small guest presence of Bulwark, a contingent of the Orders that wanted to be there to help provide goods and services to the Legion, and of course other hunting organizations that wanted to range farther afield.

Many of those topics were much more complicated than I’d like them to be, but we’d seemed to return to a general forward momentum, rather than getting stuck in a mire of self-interest and pettiness.

Bulwark wanted to, initially, be the backbone of the defending forces for what was now being called New Damond by virtually everyone. Some, myself included, bristled at the prospect of someone else moving in on our territory, a location that I felt was virtually consecrated ground for our Legion. The Obelisk itself was our proof, something that was clearly above and beyond what we’d needed, or was necessary. This was, I’d decided, to be our seat of power in the future.

We would always have a presence in Gilramore, but it, frankly, wasn’t big enough for the Legion anymore. Our facilities alone took up dozens of city squares that could otherwise could have been devoted to other groups. The presence of the Legion wasn’t necessary there anymore, we were a noose that choked out any potential from the burgeoning population.

That wasn’t to say we wouldn’t maintain a presence. Our headquarters would remain, dedicated for the day to day operations of the Legion for a long time to come. New recruits would be trained exclusively in Gilramore, the relatively safer area around the city an ideal location to bring those unbaptized in the confluence of battle to a more agreeable level of competence.

I shook my head in amusement, sounding a touch more fanatical about the Legion than expected. In light of what all had happened, I decided that it wouldn’t be proper to give Bulwark some kind of presence, even if it was dedicated only as a method of keeping an eye on us. Ostensibly, they were there as a small defence force just in case, but in reality I intended them to be there to keep us honest. We were now on the tightrope of control, we’d either have too much and run into the very same problem that I criticized the Hunter’s Order of, or we’d have too little, and be disorganized and incapable of moving forward efficiently.

On that note, though, were the other groups we’d invited to remain in New Damond. The Hunter’s Order, headed by Cassandra, was cited to be the honorary head Order, though that gave them little power in sum. She had, however, utilized her authority to reinduct her previous second in command, Alex, but only after the man had returned and apologized - or I should say begged - for forgiveness. So far, he’d seemed definitely changed for the better, but time would tell for certain. He still treated his own group, about thirty individuals now, far better than what would be expected of most teams.

It was clear that they were very closely knit, though, not a bond developed solely from material wealth. As such, I decided to leave them alone and let Cassandra deal with it. None would have authority in New Damond but the Legion, and so I felt it reasonable to give a little more breathing room to the Orders. They would work through us, and we would reap a harvest of Matter Energy from their endeavors in return for superior technologies.

Of which, we had aplenty. The course of days yielded surprising returns for our sciences. Firstly came the Reaver Field within the city limits, a massive area reserved strictly for future structures in the area. It wasn’t done yet, but there were enough platforms created to allow for five Reavers to roost. The platforms were capable of catching a Reaver coming in hot, and were built with several mounting arms that would take care of swapping kits for them. On demonstration, it was found that it took a Reaver less than sixty seconds to complete the swap, then the platform would give them a little push to get them off the ground. It was a complex system, one that I’d initially thought was overkill.

Until RR&D let me in on their future project ideas. Then this seemed perfectly reasonable.

One such project had just finished, the shard launchers. After examining the chemical makeup and atomic construction of the Spindlies own spikes, we’d come up with our own versions of the material. They were fragile if they were hit sideways, that’s something that the Spindlies had going against them, which had previously allowed us to snap the spikes without much risk of arm. That didn’t matter when it was placed into a gun, though, the rounds tipped with inch long spikes.

The most frightening version was the shard javelin launcher, a missile-pod adapted for use on power-armors, upsized for mechs, and a kit being put together for the Reavers. Another category of mechs were being created as well, pioneered by my best friend, Daniel.

The Main-Line Mech was decidedly larger and more robust than even his previous version. The MLM was designed to tank the untankable, and so far they’d done wonderous things with the design and surprising insights from Daniel. His class, Dreadnought, that hadn’t come up for so long was actually paying dividends here. Apparently the strong suit of the Dreadnought class wasn’t to give base access to mechs, it was to facilitate creating truly terrifying constructs.

There were several schematics that seemed fairly obscure, listing devices of origins we’d had no idea about, and had previously assumed we’d never get our hands on. But, as it turns out, the Dreadnought class had several smaller schematics detailing how to create the parts from scratch, as well as design methodologies and similar information. It saved our Research Division a massive amount of time, and simultaneously gave them insights in the process they would have gone through.

The downside was that it was ridiculously expensive. We’d guessed that it was to prevent that information from being leaked lightly. If it weren’t for the fact that we were generating most of the materials for construction with what was on hand, and then upgrading it as we went, I was pretty sure that all of these projects would bankrupt us.

If nothing else, the new farms were up and running, and to my delight mine and Wolvy’s previous efforts were not in vain. We’d managed to obtain four biotic hive cores that were active, and they were Gen 2 in rating. They could generate matter energy at a higher rate than what we were used too, and due to the modifications I made to them as they were being generated, we now had a steady and easy source of M.E. from the far weakened versions of the Carriers.

They were held in a highly defended and restricted area to our south-west, a small box canyon being utilized to help contain them in the event that anything unexpected happened. We regularly had an automated system clear the area, the expenditure in ammo paled in comparison to the reap of matter energy gained. I was worried somewhat at the rate of the spawning, and so we’d ensured that an end-it-all button existed on site, to be monitored every day by a Legion crew. We decided to disallow any Legion in the kill-zone itself, save for inspections performed every day after the reaping was performed. It wasn’t dangerous, not really, but we didn’t want complacency towards biotics to be any kind of behaviour we promoted.

Beyond our own city lay the skeletal, encased remains of Damond proper. A few tall buildings had been reinforced and covered by coral, and we’d decided to leave the city and as much of the coral environment intact as possible. It grew still, albeit slowly, and was a beautiful sight at night. Moreover, we’d discovered that the coral itself had some pretty intense properties. It could be used medicinally, agriculturally, and in some potent chemical compounds. Several of the plants that grew off of them showed similar properties, so much so that I could feel the radiating waves of greed from the RR&D group even from here.

They wanted more of these locations, to exploit the biotics further and push us ahead all the more.

That would have to wait, though. There were other things that concerned me at this moment.

“Cheers! You beautiful bastards!” Daniel led a toast to the truly massive improvised great hall that housed the bulk of the Legion forces, volunteer groups - now most Orders or absorbed into our own group - spread within. Near the center were a clutch of three that shared the table with Alpha, Last Call, and the Iron Chariots. The resounding cheer went out across the building, those that had been injured now mostly healed. Daniel still complained of tenderness, but whatever had been done for his injury had vaulted his healing to an insane degree.

Amidst our table were the Reaver crew; Emilia Barman was Reaver One, the team lead, Augustus Francesco was Reaver Two, and Lani Barton was Reaver Three. The three were rosy cheeked already, as were most of the people in attendance.

Alcohol was being passed around in abundance, compliments of the Brewer’s Order that had been quick to insert themselves alongside the Legion in New Damond.

‘Good business sense,’ I chuckled, seeing as we’d drained their ‘gift’ package quickly and then pounced on the rest. If there were another brewer we’d have been fair and gotten theirs as well, alas, it was a single market for the time being.

The stuff barely tingled my throat, though. But, it did taste very good somehow, so that was a massive plus. My biosteel tissues showed extreme tolerance for poison.

Enough that the three people who had challenged me to a drinking contest were now thoroughly sloshed and admitted defeat before they would be unconscious.

I laughed, seeing the members of Jeremy Strauss team as they shoveled food down, trying to fight off the drunkenness that threatened to knock them out.

Jeremy and Patrick were further to either side of me, sitting more with their teams than myself. I was smack dab in the middle with my friends nearby. Of which, I supposed I had many.

The thought came warmly to me, that we were making real progress. How many other cities out there, other forces, could boast that they’d managed to do what we had?

My smile faltered for a moment as I considered that thought again. The biotics were fairly light here in Damond, and it was highly likely that they were going somewhere else. But where, and why?

I pushed the thought down, the incessant gnawing of doubt and suspicion eager to pollute my mood.

‘Not today, not now.’ I told myself, putting those thoughts in a box.

“Thanks for coming out,” I said to the Reavers, “we’ve been waiting for a good time to bring you all down here, glad you finally had the time.”

Emilia opened her mouth to speak, still managing to look refined and severe, when Lani blurted.

“Oh, you know, it’s busy and all. Checking the area and all that, it’s a good job. Just takes forever.” She giggled, a far cry from her normal seriousness.

[Man, is that how I sound like when I’m drunk? Yikes.] Lan, her A.I. teased, [It’s pretty nice to get out of the cockpit for a bit, though. I like my giant-killing machine as much as any girl, but getting out a bit is still nice.]

I smiled good humoredly as the pair went on mild rants about the area around Damond, the gorgeous coastline that led north, the rich forests that went further westwards, and then the mountain pass to the south. Thus far, the entire areas were rich and abundant in growth, the previous rampant destruction from the meteor impacts setting the stage for regeneration.

A bulk of the forest a few kilometers west were blackened with fire damage, but it had begun to grow rapidly with the injection of ash. It was growing far more quickly than I’d expected, but I would leave that topic for the research division.

“I’m sure we’d like to talk about something less than work related,” Augustus stopped Lani’s roll, “we’re not all workaholics here.”

Terry gave a look to me, “We’re not?”

I gave a joking glare back to him, “Only 364 days a year.”

Alice snickered at that, “Ah, the jokes.” Then she paused, “you were joking, right?”

A snorting laugh came from Allendra down the table, “Oh, Jackson, she sounds like you do, only, you know, not stupid.”

The teams self-proclaimed wildcard looked up from his food, one of the men who tried to drink me under the table. “I resemble that remark,” he slurred, then paused, “Err, wait… no. Nevermind it’s gone.”

“Hey, Daniel, hear anything new on the Main Line?” Patrick asked between stuffing his face with honeyed ham slices, bread, gravy, and mashed potatoes.

Daniel, likewise, was eating gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, turkey filled slab of biscuit as he paused mid bite.

“Finish chewing first,” Fran admonished him with a smirk. He rolled his eyes exaggeratedly.

“It can tank the Spindlies now,” he said after finishing his bite, “and we’re pretty sure that it could go hand-to-hand with a Carrier. They’re motherfuckers when it comes to logistics, though. They’ll take an Ogre to carry on its own, so we’re still figuring that part out.”

Patrick’s eyes boggled, “Wow, that’s good news though. I need one of those.”

“It’s gonna be crap at scouting,” one of the people on his team laughed, “not that we care about that.”

I enjoyed the time here, accepting the small talk and bask in the ambiance here. Tomorrow will be the day where we start setting up for the next big project.

We needed to find where the biotics went. And more than that, we needed to get a path to Sunvilla. Alice had waited long enough to get to her family. This wouldn’t be the major Legion project.

Argedwall was north west of us, more towards the west, by about 30 miles. It was mostly forested, but so far we had no information on the city aside from bursts of communications from them. They were all garbled, all of which did not bode well for their inhabitants. Two operations, both to reconnect with living cities.

I had to wonder how the Legion would fit with them, and how those people would respond. With luck, all of the post-apocalypse movies I’d ever seen were assuming the worst possible outcomes from people.

With a sigh I turned my attention back to the table at hand. That was for tomorrow, a reminder that I found myself chanting like a mantra. It wasn’t wrong to just relax for a day.

But there was one more thing I’d want to ask the Reaver pilots. Soon.

‘How do you exist?’ I felt my pulse race, an ever present grief at losing Smith still present somewhere in my mind. That was yet another thing that I’d have to find out more about...