After leaving the Script Monastery, Adam had a sudden surge in the tasks he had to get done, but with the help of his entourage, he finally got to rest after one exhausting day.
The rank of Captain had promoted his entire fighting force to a Military Company, and the Sacred Code was generous enough to provide him with all the tools he needed. For that, Adam needed to give the rank of Lieutenant to his direct subordinates in order to rally orders better, but that turned out rather complicated.
Elena refused to accept a Commissioned Officer position, stating that she would rise in the ranks of Sergeants, gunning for the highest open NCO position in the Company, since she was already set for promotion as a Pennant Sergeant, an equivalent of the Staff Sergeant rank. She only took the role to manage the men and hadn't been officially appointed just yet.
This rank would be entrusted with the company's pennant, a triangular flag attached to a pole, which was then attached to the Sergeant. While it made them targets for the enemy, it was simply the highest form of honor a trooper could get in their company, and only those with a combination of zeal, bravery, and tenacity would be assigned this position, all of which were traits that Elena had in abundance.
While it pushed her out of the commanding positions, this gave her a permanent advisory seat at Adam's side. This meant that as long as he rose in ranks, she would be right at his heel. As for the Trench Dogs, they were now assigned to Stone as the new Sergeant, but they still remained as Elena's direct subordinates, the protectors of the company's pennant.
Kave was offered a Lieutenant position by Adam, but he turned it down and went for a Corporal, attempting to climb the Sergeant ranks the same as his mommy wife.
Megan, on the other hand, accepted the position of Lieutenant as she was going to do so anyway, since she was already a strategic officer, a position Adam invented to keep his Wartopia group in the picture.
This was just one Lieutenant position filled out of six, but Adam had no shortage of men. Still, not all of them had done the trial to be promoted willy-nilly. He had to simply send word to all squads about the open positions and watched as their leaders started running for the Iron Maiden operators, requesting trial entry.
However, this wasn't as easy as most of them hoped, since the situation with the Jotnar wasn't resolved just yet, and not all territory was regained.
There was one piece of good news, though, and many troopers started reporting it to Adam: the Freeze had stopped.
No longer constrained by the supernatural force that disturbed all Solarium Technology, Adam sent unit after unit to scour Springhead and indiscriminately kill or capture Neanders. Even Captain Creed happily took the charge, gunning specifically for Bigfoot sightings.
Not long after, the soldiers clashed with a big Neander force in the area of the Dire Wolves rift, discovering that the Neanders were capturing dire wolves and attempting to use them as mounts and war beasts, which Adam simply did not allow. Naturally, he was in favor of all human and animal friendship, but those humans were mutants, and those doggies had a better place to be: the hungry bellies of the 2,000 civilians. Even Captain Creed gave him a look when he stated it like that.
Lastly, there was the matter that occupied his Scriptorium summons, the Convergence Cube. Solana, Solnar, Solbjorn, and Soliha were all going in lengthy arguments about the Convergence Cube, Solana and Solbjorn fearing its dangers and the probability of the Sacred Code giving more dangerous designs for Adam once again, whereas Solnar and Soliha were frantically wanting to construct and study it.
With a house divided, Adam had to step in, stating that he neither had the resources, the time, nor the use of such device at the moment, but if it were ever needed, he wouldn't hesitate to use it for the betterment of mankind.
With his firm stance given, Adam dismissed the members of the Scriptorium, but Soliha stayed behind, stating that as a Luminare, she was not a nun, but more of a scholar, before requesting free access to both the Command Center's Oratory and the Civilian Base, wishing to establish a House of Wisdom to preserve and potentially revive the knowledge of this world.
While most Scriptorium units would usually frown upon adopting fossil age technology, Adam found Soliha to be an enthusiast of purifying archeotech from heresy, potentially converting them into sanctioned designs.
For that, Adam allowed her operation to start just as soon as the civilians returned to their base, with Senator Carter convincing them that the Neanders had been pushed back, and they could spend the rest of the winter in their warm homes downhill.
The senator also suggested some kind of celebration since Christmas was skipped over a month ago, but Adam couldn't approve of it due to safety reasons and the possibility of Neander retaliation.
The last piece of news for the day was the completion of multiple Firebase Bombards over an elevated platform at the edge of the base. These bombards would act as the hammering hand of the Company, and Adam had an entire platoon set as the Bombardment Platoon.
Along the same topic, the construction of the Great Cannon over the Command Center was still a work in progress, but it was finally starting to take shape. Printing and assembling the cannon turret parts was delayed due to the focus on defense the last few days, but with the Company's numbers surging lately, Adam had all his Titanite and Lunar troopers assigned to work on it together, with strict orders of cooperation and heavy punishment for in-fighting between the two rivaling moon dwellers.
By the next day, reports came to Adam that Captain Creed had led the frontlines into one final operation to reclaim the old borders of the base, completely eradicating the last of the Neanders in the territory. For that, Adam issued a command for Task Force Ajax to assemble in the Command Center for a new scouting mission.
At the open area in the heart of the Base Bastion, Adam stood with the newly promoted Lieutenant Magpie on his right and Pennant Sergeant Elena on his left. The latter proudly held a triangular flag on a pole, which she would occasionally attach to her back.
In front of them stood U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Ajax, Legio Bellarium Corporal Hammerhead, and the Privates Bolt, Fish, and Chips. Another fire team was also there, composed of auxiliaries accompanied by Scriptorium warrior monk Solbjorn.
Adam had a prepared hologram display added in the area for large group briefings, but he was dying to use it, so he used it anyway to give his briefing.
"Here's what we know." He spoke in a booming voice, his black Justiciar outfit now adorned with a few shoulder plates to reflect the rank of a Captain-at-Arms. "After the events of the Freeze, we lost contact with multiple pieces of machinery and equipment that were left beyond our borders. The Freeze had cut all the signals and probably damaged some circuitry, and so this would be a maintenance run. The auxiliary team would perform the main mission while Team Ajax would provide fire support only if needed, as well as conduct the usual reconnaissance around the auxiliary team. The targets would be as shown on the map, all within a twelve-mile radius of the main base, which meant our Bombardment Platoon would be at your beck and call. I am the one paying the bill, so you boys can have fun."
"You just want to fire the Bombards yourself, sir." Lieutenant Magpie added, which made Adam turn to her with a frown.
"Yes, please." He replied loudly and bluntly, shamelessly revealing his intentions of playing with his new toys, before turning to the gathered squad and giving another speech, "The only thing sexier than a sci-fi howitzer cannon that shoots HE shells is a sci-fi howitzer cannon that shoots them from space. Excuse my bluntness, ladies and gentlemen, but you are dealing with my bucket list here, and if you don't find me a goddamn target to blast with my sexy sci-fi howitzers, I'll be in a very sour mood."
"Sir!"
The squad saluted Adam as he grinned widely.
"You have five Scanner Beacons that have gone dark; without them, we can't track enemy movement. But that's not the real problem, in my opinion." Adam changed the view of the hologram to a stingray-shaped object. "These are our very own Stingray Drones constructed by our friends in the Armamenta Bellarium just a few hours before the Freeze. They had laid waste to the enemy during the first hour of the defense, but they lost signal when the Freeze hit and probably crashed in these locations. Your second primary mission is to locate these babies, assess the damage, and reactivate them if possible, or send us reports if the damage was too heavy."
"Sir!"
"Corporal Hammerhead would be in command of this operation. Sergeant Ajax and Brother Solbjorn will take advisory positions. Communication must be open at all times. If reinforcement is needed, Ordo Bellarium Captain Solomon Creed will be on the borders of the territory, so you will have a fun time with all the bombardment and a paladin running around, a total Wartopia experience if you ask me."
With his passionate briefing over, Adam gave time for the men to ask their questions about the routes to take and the enemy hotspots to avoid. Thankfully, the Command Center had a very detailed record of the lay of the land, as well as some weapon caches hidden outside the borders by patrol squads.
With this much preparation, the squad hit the road, taking two V-Bugs with them. Megan was put in charge of the operation, and Adam scurried to the Bombardment platform where the area was buzzing with vigor, readying the cannons for total annihilation of the Children of Jotnar if they were to ever appear on scanners.
But before Adam arrived at the bombardment platform, he stopped by the War Factory building where the mechanics were focused on producing more armored vehicles. Multiple engines were being assembled, as well as V-Bug, Carapace, Scarab, and Battlemaster tank frames. Adam gave no particular production order, but he was in complete awe when he stood beside the frame of the Battlemaster tank, seeing its empty shell without armor plates, and with barely any engine and turret parts coming together.
He may have seen that tank a few times in simulation, but a real one, although incomplete, sent a completely different feeling down his bones. He wanted to prioritize it so bad, but his Company was in need of actual troop carriers, so he made the agonizing decision to focus on the Scarabs and the Carapaces.
With that done, he radio-checked on the progress of Ajax's squad, but it seemed they still hadn't reached their first target, giving him enough time to continue on his tour, straight to the nearby building that was still mid-construction, the Star Hangar.
Whereas the War Factory was a building that followed the Ministry of War Industries, aka the Armamenta Bellarium, the Star Hangar was an Armada Bellarium building, the Ministry of Stellar Fleets.
It was a complex of five starcraft hangars originating from a single central factory, taking the shape of a star. No traditional airplane runway was needed, however, since these starcrafts could take to the sky right from where they stood.
The other exciting aspect of this whole thing was the fact that starcrafts could not just take to the air, but to space as well. However, that would require a type of fuel technology to which Adam had no access yet.
Still, air superiority was a terrifying thing to have, and he was willing to bet high on it for both expansion and exploration.
In a way, Adam felt like he had sufficient power to break out of his shell in Springhead and march towards Omen and Brighthaven, but that would still require him to get rid of the Jotnar or any nearby threat from the Freeze.
Moreover, he had another big project that he had in mind, something that involved a lot of Sacred Geometry, Runes, and possibly the first idea he had for a Runic Artifact crafted by his very own hands.
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