"Oh, the locals are to be blessed, for they have permitted us to have taken fourteen of these; they're only going to have six."
"They're still going to use them when we aren't."
"And we're a pretty big load, are we not?"
"Are we really, brother? There are so many refugees and the bunkers cannot be built fast enough. We hardly count."
"Did Charles finish programming that monster?"
"Yeah, with that Marine. Who are they?"
"We're not supposed to know, are we?"
"No, I mean the call signs—of course I don't know their identities! What do we call them?"
"There are too many people here. I preferred when it was just us, but I believe that is Edgecase."
There were four Marines, and of them, only Captain Owningsburg had a real identity. Identity was uncommon among syndicate muscle. The captain must have had some sort of political or legalistic connection, likely to his home planet. Why such an entity would work for the syndicate was anyone's guess. He seemed more like a Nanotrasen or Tri-Tachyon man. The other Marines were less enigmatic but more anonymous.
Call the other three Marines simply by call signs: Edgecase, Papa Delta, and Covffefe—or Coffee for short.
"Covffefe, Charles and Gabriel are the only ones to have seen the monster up close."
"And Squire."
"Yes, and Squire… they need a name."
"They like Squire."
"What a freak."
"Pride is a mortal sin, comrade. Be humble."
"Disgust was placed in my heart by my creator, brother! Pride would be to deny it!"
Indeed, Edgecase and Charles had co-opted one of the simulators on the first terrestrial day. They had sought to recreate an enemy that approximated the mecha they had witnessed on Turlington Station. While other knights observed the day of rest that follows risk, Charles observed a day of leisure; his leisure was that of simulation and game development.
Quoth the Magus: "Enjoyment is a form of quiet reflection, even if it is productive."
The others who bore witness to the alien swapped in for Charles frequently, offering feedback: "It didn't move like that," or "It's faster and stronger than that," but Charles never left the room until the job was done. A mind for machines, that knight.
He and Edgecase kept iterating and programming on that old open-source simulator. Both thanked the heavens it was not of a modern, less-documented make.
It would host, the others would copy, and after thirteen hours of the relative peace and tranquility of the anemic military base—still yet in peacetime—the first simulation was scheduled. 'Twas mere hours away now. Charles would act as the monster. His goal: "cruelty." A score chart for cruelty was rendered by his fellows.
The other knights (minus two Magus bodyguards) would try to kill him, alongside the Marines.
And who were the other four knights? Lopin, Rafael, Ambrose, and Cotton. Or otherwise: Lopin, Ralph, Bro, and Cotton, in order from youngest to oldest. The two you heard earlier were Ambrose and Rafael as they began their shift guarding the Magus.
Gabriel and Jason would miss the first reenactment: a repeat of the events at Turlington Station.
Five would act as the security investigating the reactor to simulate a possible scenario that could have created the disaster. The one who died of friendly fire would be randomly scripted, as would their killer—a crude attempt to recreate the shock of the mistake.
And as the first twenty-four hours passed, though disaster had struck, a terrible optimism had taken hold of the survivors. The monster was known, the planet was wide and exciting, and insurance was confirmed to cover malicious sabotage, even when alien.
A few civilians happily thanked their rescuers and, packing their belongings, left the military base to visit cities and, with luck, contact someone relevant about traveling home, collecting insurance, or being re-utilized for their labor, expertise, or study.
The little arctic base, though officially it prepared for alien invasion, saw few take the more despotic precautions seriously enough to enforce them. Not even the Magus, who was the preparation's champion. Who was he to deny the adventurous their journey?
Most stayed, however, and natives of the planet did not stop arriving. At first, it had mostly been odd specialists, military officials, and eccentric, risk-averse local celebrities. But now, only thirty-six hours after the Magus's arrival, it was becoming the masses: radio-watching middle-class mothers, paranoid malcontents, and the paperless and undocumented who somehow still had false identities and accurate modern news.
If it had been told, it could be seen now.
The planetary military officially turned away pure-blooded clones of "Bram," the shareholder who had cursed this planet so long ago. Those who were second cousins or closer were second-class citizens. They would not receive the safety civilization promised its members. Radicals believed the planet would be better off with zero of Bram's genetic material.
They all had the same face and height; it seemed they shared voices, mannerisms, and posture even. "Bram" was a dirty word on this planet, and it was obvious why.
"The church has an official stance on this practice?" Gabriel asked Oscar.
"The church holds that the inbred and invalid are living things and that their suffering is not invaluable."
"Yeah, but what does that mean?" Gabriel sought purpose.
"It means that when they suffer, we shouldn't ignore it."
"So are we going to do something about it?"
"Watch how slave and oppressor alike already take the path of least resistance. To enforce otherwise requires strength we do not have; to do so correctly, a wisdom I fear we do not possess."
"You are complicit? Is it not our duty to help?"
"Help who, Gabriel?" Oscar spoke with his exhausted authority. "I worry they are going to be the alien's fifth column on this planet."
Gabriel had no answer for now.
"Seriously Gabe, you are asking me very big questions. I cannot answer effectively."
"It's a simple question and it should have a simple answer. I don't know what we're defending here."
"Ourselves. Humanity is spiritually weak in this place." Oscar clicked his teeth angrily. "You saw that thing." He gently pointed to the sky, implying the alien. "It knows."
T-minus 20 hours after landing. The simulation was ready. The participants were ready. The Magus surprised everyone.
"I will be joining Charles as part of the red team. I have not seen this monster before; give me the character model, please, Mr. Marine! I will kill you all!"
The only two armored suits in the area were worn by Gabriel and Jason. The Magus would not be defended in the virtual world, except by Charles.
In reality, skid-steer operation was the Magus's reason for favoring Charles. They shared a taste for esoteric machine operation.
The non-antagonistic men of armor were obliged to distract themselves while Charles and his titled friend, Joseph, familiarized themselves with the physical capabilities they had reconstructed. Edgecase, the unofficial game master, compared their performance to real footage.
"We have no idea how this thing is piloted. For all we know, this is the real experience." Charles was apologetic.
"Nuts," said the Grand Magus, Joseph.
"The machine is something else; just try it out."
Silence fell as the simulation emulated the vibration of a space station while the Magus accelerated through the thin station wall and into simulated zero-G.
"Hah! Holy cow!"
"Right?"
"How the devil do you pilot this thing? You can barely react."
"You are born a two-inch-long lizard, is how."
"Surely we can control for reaction time?"
"We have thought a little bit about that. We were toying with the idea of scripting a set of actions beforehand and letting our opponents respond to them in real time."
"That's probably the way we should do it. It's clunkier for the attackers, but it prevents them from assuming that we have the reaction time delay. Even if the normies figure it out, it's preferable they falsely realize the machine has fixed plans than falsely realize it has human reaction time."
"Ohhh. Are you sure? Edgecase, well… it might take an extra half hour to set up."
"It also destroys the fun of piloting this thing… I think the only way I get back to the station is ripping my arm off and throwing it." Joseph chuckled without prompting—the innocent laugh of a child in the body of an old man.
"So are we or aren't we programming these things?"
"Don't ask Charles. I'm going to be a senile liability soon; don't scare me by asking silly questions. Pick function over fun for goodness' sake!"
Charles hopped out of the simulator and approached his fellow programmer and game master. They conspired to enable a setting previously disabled.
Technical difficulties were always part of every process, but the anxiety felt by technical difficulty was never universal. Ten impatient men, waiting to kill a virtual monster in a virtual world, passed good-natured jeers around as they watched the two nerds work. Or, at least, the fun ones did.
Some of them were less fun. Those men only glowered angrily at those silly machines and those silly machine-men, as time was wasted and all were forced to pay undue service to the silly and false machine gods that lead so many to the ruin they always deserved.
Even now, such men wondered at their own demise and the safety of a military base in the cradle of the Earth, underground within the steel walls.One of them—only one of them—had seen the monster they prepared to fight.