"We"

[Balance]

Tohoku

Wild Boeser Verraeter smiled as he observed the Consortium cyborg machine intelligences bombard the new Wild base in Tohoku. The CS ships were feverishly pouring fire into the base structure--confident their efforts would shatter Tekagi's base and its signature arch into a million pieces of rubble.

They had begun with a preliminary bombardment of what appeared to be natural rock fissures, hoping to increase the stress along the fissure lines. Then they had proceeded to fire ballistic missiles and to accelerate artificial and natural masses into the station in order to crack those same fissures open and expose the base interior.

It was difficult to suppress the human inclination of his current bioform to laugh. Decades of intelligent nanopaste -- powered and programmed by the energy of a Nomad power cell had infused the natural rock structure at Tohoku so as to make it nearly invulnerable. Flexible and piezoelectric, the nanopaste converted the kinetic and thermal energy of weapons impacts into fluid energy shielding throughout the structure. Each blow and blast momentarily multiplied the hardness and shielding value of the paste as well as provided auxiliary power to the station's weaponry. It would take energies on the scale of a singularity to overcome the resilience of the paste and affect the rock it permeated. This was the work that Tekagi had begun. It was the defensive capabilities programmed into this same paste that had kept humans from reclaiming the arch for so long as well --keeping it inviolate and ready for its new masters, the Wild.

This attack was allowed to proceed as it served the purpose of allowing the Wild a long, leisurely time to scan, classify and analyze every rivet and energy signature of the Consortium ships. Weapons, turn and fire rates, hull armor, transmissions and chemical analysis of exhaust gasses as well as a barrage of other passive and active scanners gathered information on the attacking vessels. Perceived weaknesses in the base's structure were computer directed thermal blooms and seismic vibrations generated intentionally through the nanopaste by a Wild remote control system within the base. Fissures and cracks were only radar and holographically enhanced false weak spots lined with sensors and weapons counter batteries.

So clever were these frankensteinian creatures in their own minds. So futile and valueless their efforts. Occasionally a Wild fighter group was directed to snipe at the units but they were allowed to stay to analyze their capabilities and weaknesses. In time, these creatures would be removed -- though they thought they would rule human life in this sector. Even now in their self-imagined brilliance they sought to infiltrate the ranks of the Wild with one they felt was immune to assimilation. Perhaps during their attack we will order the nanopaste to simulate damage in order to amuse ourselves further. Imagine the despair of our attackers to see it repaired before their eyes.

They cannot understand Us. They cannot see. Futility.

**LAUGHTER**

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