Chapter 84

We struck the other encampment like lightening. I had Richards working the teleportation unit in the main house and with a little intelligence feed directly from the network cameras in the area he was able to put my strike team into the enclosure exactly where we needed to be to start blowing robots away. As always I led the initial assault.

The man teleported my strike team into the centre of the encampment, just up from where the bridge entered the lake. With me were Dork, Caitlin, Talbot, and Danvers. We came in with our weapons charged and at the ready. We each quickly dropped a robot before it could even react. Then as the robots crumpled into piles of scrap before us, we moved away from our teleportation point, spreading out as we moved. As we did, the second wave of my people popped in. This time Ben, Jake, Dave, and Don appeared, each of them ready for action. Fortunately there wasn't much left once they were ready to get into it. The four of them had to satisfy themselves taking down the guards in the watchtowers and a couple of other human guards armed with rifles while my friends and mate and I dropped the remaining robots before they could figure out that our body armour was preventing them from killing us. It was all over in a matter of minutes.

Hope took care of the few human guards left, those who had the stun rays as weapons. She locked on to each and every ray weapon and she took it away from the person carrying them well before they got a chance to use it. Those men ended up just as dead as their colleagues though, as I had given orders to take no prisoners. These people were as bad as the network folks and I had no real desire to treat them like they deserved to live. It made mopping up easy.

Our arrival did cause a major panic but once we'd secured the encampment we were able to get everyone calmed down or at least calm enough that I could explain what was going on. While I spoke to all the outworlders in the camp, I sent Suzy to find and speak to the alien they were holding. I wanted that done and dealt with as quickly as possible. I even suggested that Suzy have Hope teleport the whole group back to the resort so that Felicity and her people could look after them. She readily agreed to that.

Again I kept my chat with the outworlders very short and very sweet. I told them my basic spiel and then I told them what was going to happen to them. Unlike everyone else I had liberated across Game World, these people weren't going to go to Oak Hall. I had a job for them and I decided the resort would work as a place to put them until that job was done. Once I had spoken to them, I had Hope teleport them out in small groups so that the people at the resort could accommodate them. We ended up waiting for quite some time for everyone to be teleported out.

We left the spaceship where it lay for now. Hope had service robots busy constructing a large teleportation unit for us to use back at the resort but it would take time to complete it. While some of the equipment already existed on the alternative Earth, all of the units there were in use bringing in raw material to help sustain the population on that planet. To divert any of those resources would result in deaths as we were talking about food and water and oxygen and not just luxury items. As such I decided that we would have to wait until the service robots finished their job at the resort. When we did finally teleport the vessel from the lake to the resort I planned to have her put it down on the tennis courts there. They were probably the only hardened surface of any size near the resort that could bear the weight of the vessel.

Once everyone was teleported out of the northern enclosure, I had Richards teleport my strike team back to the main complex. There we started with the process all over again. Once I got the go ahead from Josh at the resort we began teleporting small groups of people from there to the resort. It was well into the afternoon before everyone had been teleported to the resort and I got a chance to head off to bed. Thankfully by that time, Josh had appeared at the resort with one of his reception teams. I had a quick word with him about what I wanted him to do and then I handed everything over to him. I didn't get up again until the next morning.

I woke to find myself in bed with Caitlin, Felicity, and Nimue. I will admit here and now that I took advantage of that situation. I made love to each of my precious mates and then I promptly went back to sleep. The next time I woke it was noon hour and I was alone.

It didn't take me long to shower and dress and kit up again. I was on a tight schedule for the day and I shouldn't have slept in but I had so I did the best to make up for it. I ordered up food to the suite that I and my mates were using and then I ordered a whole bunch of people in so we could talk. I called for Elsa and Tobias from Oak Hall and then had somebody find Dork, Caitlin, Felicity, Nimue, Richards, Talbot, and Danvers. I even arranged for Hope to have a video feed so she could talk to everyone directly. The fact was that we needed to have a war council and we needed it fast. I ate while I briefed everyone.

"All right people," I said as I washed down my lunch with some wine, "we're in a lot of trouble. The bastards from Sahara Network have taken over another alternate Earth and in the time I've been playing about here on Game World they've been building up an army. Yesterday Dork and I interrogated six of the bastards and we got a pretty good picture of the situation. Depending on whom you believe, the bastards have replicated between a thousand and two thousand security robots along with weapons and ammunition. As you can easily guess they intend to use this army against us."

"Shit," Elsa muttered shaking her head in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding."

"I'm not kidding so listen up for I'm only going to say this once," I answered her bluntly. "We've got two priorities on the table as of this minute. One is the defence of Oak Hall and when I say that it includes the defence of every teleportation system we have control of at the moment. That job is going to have to be split between Elsa, Tobias, and Richards."

With that I got nods of acknowledgement from Elsa and Tobias and a question from Richards. He wanted to know exactly what I wanted him to do.

"I want you to shut down any and all teleportation systems on your planet that we don't have technicians manning right now," I told him sharply. "I know that some of the other networks sabotaged their systems before we put them out of business, but there are enough teleportation systems lying about that if somebody gets control of one we'll be in trouble. I want you to pull the plug on them and then lock them out as best as you can."

"That will limit our capabilities to teleport troops about if we need to do that," Richards informed me.

"Then set it up that Hope can make use of the systems when and if she needs to access them," I suggested, "but just make certain that nobody else can make use of them. Have you got that?"

"Yes my lord," Richards stated firmly in reply.

"So while you're doing that," I continued, "Tobias will be deploying security troops to all of the teleportation control centres that we're using right now. Unfortunately that means that we're going to have to spread our troops about thinly once again until this crisis is over with. According to the people we interrogated, the main group of network bastards won't be worrying about them until tomorrow. Of course that could be a lie so we can't trust it. It means that we need to strike out at them before they can strike out at us. That is our second priority. We need to muster a military force that can stand up to thousands of robots and kick their ass."

"Damn, you don't ask for much do you?" Elsa said with a sigh. "So where do we start?"

"Well, like I've already said," I began, "we start by posting guards here at the resort and at the complexes on the alternative Earth where we have teleportation units up and operating. The last thing we want is for the enemy to get control of those systems. Without the ability to move about at will or draw supplies from another world we'll be screwed. I want Tobias to cover that job off."

"As you command, my lord," Tobias responded instantly.

"Excellent," I nodded in reply. "Make certain that you coordinate everything with Elsa and that you keep her in the loop and remember that she will be providing your reserves if you do get attacked.

"Of course my lord," Tobias declared with firmness and a glace over to where Elsa was sitting.

"Elsa," I said to my mate, drawing her attention to me, "I want you in charge of prepping the actual defence of Oak Hall. You can work with Suzy Park on this and you can draw on her militia. Your biggest problem will be trained personnel. With Tobias and I taking as many trained men and women from you as we can get away with, that is going to leave you with very few people who know how to use firearms effectively and for this operation you're going to need as many guns as you can get your hands on. Fortunately I picked up a few men in Africa who know how to use rifles and shotguns so you can employ them as squad leaders and weapons instructors. Draw as many of the assault shotguns as you need. They're the easiest to learn and ensure you keep an eye on Suzy's people.

"I will Charles," Elsa responded when I was done speaking to her.

"Okay then," I said with a nod of acknowledgement, "with that taken care of we need to look at the attack that I'm planning to drop on those bastards on the other world. Unfortunately we've got very little in the way of intelligence about the place other than the fact that the network picked New Zealand as their base of operation. To be specific, they chose the southern island. From what little we could get out of the people we questioned they have a base built on the western shore that is their headquarters. It has a mansion that houses them and their families and they have quarters for the servants that they keep. They also have a large ranch in the interior east of their main base where they grow crops and raise livestock. That is where most of the slaves are kept. As for the robots and the replicator unit, the robots are stationed near the main house and the replicator is set up in a large building on the estate where it is kept working around the clock. According to Hope, the model these bastards have can produce about a hundred robots a day which means in the past forty-eight hours they've increased their strength by two hundred security robots."

"So how are we going to deal with them?" Talbot asked, receiving nods from the rest of the group who were sitting about the table.

"With force and a little ingenuity on my part," I replied with a knowing grin. "Now listen up."

I was able to muster one hundred men and women for the mission and assemble them at the resort by the time evening came along. By then I had done a little shopping and a little recruiting to add a couple of other people to my attacking force. Hopefully the new additions would prove helpful. Once everyone was there and ready to go I had Hope teleport us in.

My strike force got broken up into two separate units. I gave Dork and Caitlin command of the smaller of the two forces and sent them to the ranch to the east of the main estate. With them I sent twenty-five men and women. They were to take out the robot guards who were overseeing the ranch and then they were to liberate the outworlder prisoners. I wished them both luck and then I saw them off.

The larger force I put under the command of Nimue. Technically she wasn't at one hundred percent yet but she could command and that was all that mattered. Under her I put Talbot and Danvers splitting the remaining seventy-five men between the two of them. Their job was to deal with the robots first. When they had, then they could worry about the network bastards. If the bastards ran for it, I hoped they would head for Ali's compound in Africa. Tobias would have men waiting to pick them up there if they did.

Hope teleported us in around noon New Zealand time with me leading the way once again. Prior to our departure I had Hope acquire me another fully armed Sparrow Hawk. With that aircraft in my hands I hoped to be able to balance out the odds that my ground forces were going to have to face.

This time I dropped in only about five miles off the coast of New Zealand and only six miles away from my primary target. With only seconds available I turned on my active radar system and hoped against hope that the bastards in the mansion ahead of me hadn't installed any defensive weapons systems.

Well nothing happed when I went hot. My defensive radar kept quiet and the only thing that did happen was my battle computer started loading up targets to my heads up display for me to pick and destroy. Amongst those targets were the warehouse that had the replicator in it and the mansion. I picked the first one as I zipped over the coastline and past the white sandy beach that lay between the water and the estate.

There were people on the beach as I buzzed over it and from the reaction that I spotted in my targeting cameras, the people weren't happy. I didn't really care if they were or they weren't. At that exact moment I was arming two air-to-surface missiles and I let loose with them the moment I got lock-on the warehouse. A second later the place was gone.

My Sparrow Hawk zipped by the estate and I was a mile past it when I brought my bird back around for a second pass. As I did, I armed two more air-to-surface missiles and I let them loose into the inferno that had been the warehouse. When those two missiles went off I turned my attention to the mansion.

By then I was receiving small arms fire from the security robots. They were forming up in squares and they were all targeting me. As I waited for a lock-on for my next two missiles, I opened up on the robots with my nose mounted chain gun. In seconds I was chewing up robots left and right and then I was firing my missiles again and I was heading back out over the beach and towards the sea.

My chit-chat with the prisoners in Africa had given me cohobating statements that put the teleportation system controls at a specific location under the mansion. Hopefully the missiles I was firing would take out those systems. If so there would be no escape for the bastards. I just crossed my fingers when the missiles flew away from my bird and I turned my attention back to taking out the army of robots as my people started popping in.

My people came in on either flank of the estate. Almost immediately they came under fire from the robots that were marching about the property trying to defend it. They actually had very little chance of doing it. As I swung about again and headed back to the estate I opened up with my chain gun once again. In a matter of seconds I was over the target once more and I was chewing up mechanical men left, right, and centre. Between my chain gun and the concentrated fire of my people using HEAP rounds, the number of robots started to diminish very quickly.

With the Sparrow Hawk dominating the sky and providing ground support to my troops the battle didn't last more than twenty minutes from the moment I launched my missiles at the warehouse until the moment the last robot fell to the fire of some of my ground troops While my people did take some fire during those twenty minutes, except for a few ricochets that hit limbs and grazed appendages, my people suffered zero permanent casualties. That alone made me happy.

With all the robots destroyed it was time to round up the network people and have a chat with them. I left Nimue, Talbot, and Danvers to take care of that while I swung my bird about and I headed inland. I was on the radio with Caitlin and she was reporting that they were having a little too much fun out at the farm. It turned out that the network people had built a few second generation robots to help patrol the area. These were the robots that were mounted on all terrain vehicles that were armed with mini chain guns. Their sudden appearance after Dork, Caitlin, and their troops had teleported in had thrown the plan to liberate the ranch into a bit of disarray. Fortunately the ranch was only five minutes away from the estate by air and I still had a couple of air-to-surface missiles that I needed to dispose of.