Salvage crews met them at the first battle site. Alan watched with interest a very practiced and thorough salvage recovery operation. As efficiently as they moved, it was still going to take time to gather everything up. He wasn’t going to leave the area until the other fighting groups had finished their salvage missions as well.

He pulled up video footage of the Saber Cats to see how the fights went. The results were better than he had hoped.

The Saber Cats dispatched the other two Ustobo assault groups faster than Alan could even hope to. Their speed and agility proved to be incredibly valuable with how the Saru applied it. Having lighter weapons didn’t seem to hinder them that much. He skipped the videos ahead to where they engaged the last group.

They almost got the Ungar. They were too close to the outpost though, and nearly lost one of the Saber Cats in the process of trying to kill him. He watched as turrets, similar to the one they had engaged with rumbled up from the depths.

The turrets were smaller than the one they had engaged with before. Their shots were not near as powerful as the previous one either. The shots came faster and more frequently, and there were four turrets that had popped up on this edge of the outpost.

The scene behind the turrets was barren looking. Everything had been removed and taken down to a dead dirt patch. The entrance to the mines that all the Ustobo still went in and out of was like a cave entrance with dirt mounded heavily on all sides.

Alan made a note to himself to have the Saru use the spy bugs to scout around and see if they could find out how many turrets there might be hidden below the surface.

He watched the Saru back off out of the turrets range. One of the Saber Cats was limping along at barely an eighth speed. Another one had it’s head so mangled it looked like a freak of nature. Fortunately Alan had built in enough redundant systems it could still function enough to get away. The medium armor and lighter weapons didn’t work so well against turrets.

If they were ever going to make an attack on the Outpost grounds now, Alan realized he was going to have to bring a varied arsenal to bare. How that arsenal was deployed and engaged in combat threatened to make his head spin. The argument that he was not a military leader berated his mind.

The thought of leading a fight into an underground base also pressed on him. Alan had built underground bunkers before, often in fact. There was a good reason military commanders issued orders to pound them from orbit any chance they got. Sending in troops often turned into a death sentence. Alan didn’t have that luxury of orbital bombardment.

“You’ve been pretty quiet since the fighting ended. How are you doing?” Sara asked over an internal comm that only they two of them shared.

“Just going over how things went and what can be learned from it.”

“From what I’ve seen it went extremely well! We did good until that spider thing got on our back. That was just a bit freaky. We obviously need something better to deal with riders on our backside.”

“Agreed. The rolling thing worked this time. If we would have been on uneven ground, that could have been bad, or not worked at all.” Alan’s thoughts raced. “I do need that mobile platform I designed. I don’t know that I can reverse engineer these spider things at Father’s base. I’m still not convinced study of the Ustobo or the Ungar’s work might trigger Father.”

“Well, I have good news for you then.”

“Oh?”

“While you’ve been busy with the new designs for the Saber Cat and this thing, I made arrangements for some of our furry friends to go to our production facility with a full load of materials and start putting your mobile base together.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’s nearly three quarters completed. Want to go see it when we are done here?”

“I could kiss you right now!”

“I’ll hold you to that later.”

Alan was pretty sure his face was probably blushed red. Half of it anyway. “That solves some serious issues.”

“Good thing. The Saru I sent to build it are complaining a lot. Our parts manufacturing is too slow and archaic for their standards. Once they got the mobile base manufacturing up and running, they have been using it to build the rest.”

Alan felt a sense of relief and a world of possibilities open back up to him again. “We still have to operate out of Father’s place for now. I don’t dare leave this Vattaux mecha out in the open parked for long periods of time.”

“I figured as much. I don’t mind. I like the little furry guys. I might actually miss them.”

Even though they did look very different, they did have many similar mannerisms and traits relatable to humans. It still wasn’t the same a normal human interaction, but it might suffice over time.

The salvage operation completed and Alan had them move out toward where the mobile base was being constructed. Anything to be reverse engineered would be dropped off there. The rest of it could be sent back to Father’s base.

When they got close, Alan could see the mobile back in deployed formation just outside the facility. “Why are they building it outside?!”

“They said the floor was starting to make a lot of noises at one point. So they moved it outside. That was another complaint of theirs. On the bright side, the defensive turrets have been working great against predators. They are very happy about that.”

Alan rolled his eyes and shook his head. The mecha beast did the head shaking action. There were no eyes to roll.

“Hey, they are doing as best they can. Don’t get an attitude about it.”

Alan thought about it. “I guess I shouldn’t criticize them. I did only design that floor with the strength needed to have a small army of drones. That would have been a fraction of the weight of this thing.”

He parked the Vattaux mecha near the mobile base. Two powered armor forms dropped down from the chest of the mechanical beast. Alan walked up closer and greeted the Saru work crew. They were excited to see him. They acted like little kids, all excited to show the adult all the progress they had made.

The salvage crews separated out the parts and pieces Alan had asked for and put them in the storage area of the mobile base. Alan did a careful inspection. There were some things he would need to change to make them work better. That always happened so it didn’t bother him.

What he was more interested in was if the thing was ready to move. Most of what needed to be completed was add on stuff that could be managed without for now. He made the decision. He got the attention of the crew chief and called him over.

“Degrin, right?”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

“I want you guys to pack everything up and drive this mobile base back to home. Park it in my shop area.”

“Parking turrets work, but we haven’t finished the main surface weapons yet! This thing isn’t fast enough to run away. We need an escort.”

“Yes, I know you do. You’re coming with us. We are going to be your escort.”

Degrin smiled big. “So we are going home right NOW!?”

“As soon as everything is packed up and your crew is in the mobile base, yes.”

The Saru jumped up in the air with a raise fist. The creature spun around after landing and started shouting “We’re going HOME! We’re going HOME!” as he made his way to the other crew members.

The area was a flurry of activities. Leftover materials were loaded up into the base. The salvage crew helped with getting things stowed for the trip home. Word traveled fast that the mobile base was a little on the slow side and it would probably be nightfall before they could get back.

Alan rubbed his burning eyes. A nearly intact spider weapon lay in organized pieces on the work bench inside of his mobile base. Two others lay in pieces as well on either side of this one.

“Hey you,” Sara’s soothing voice broke away his attention on the weapon. “Cybernetics doesn’t negate the need for sleep. You need to take a break.”

“I’m almost done.” He made note of a few more items he had learned about. He felt like his mind was starting to turn to mush. Keeping a logical train of thought was getting exponentially harder with the passing time. He wasn’t even sure how long he had been working on this weapon.

Sara touched his shoulder. “You need to get some sleep. The world is not likely to end in the next few hours.”

Alan stood up from his chair. Something caught his eye and he moved to turn a piece of chambered crystal laying on the bench.

Sara caught him by the arm and pulled him away. “No, enough for now.”

He looked at Sara in the somewhat dimmed light of the shop. He remembered he set the lights up to help him tell what time of day it was. It was sometime in the middle of the night. He hadn’t even noticed the lights dim.

She smiled at him and pulled him along to the sleeping quarters.

“I probably just need an hour more and I could be completely done with that project.”

“Yeah, right. I know you too well. One project usually leads into another.” She lead him into his room and made him sit down on his bed. “Get some sleep mister!”

She started to turn away when he caught her by the wrist. She turned and gave him a look of ‘oh really’.

Alan felt drained. There was something he wanted to take care of before he fell asleep though. He gently pulled her closer. “I believe I owe you a kiss.”

She smiled. “Yes you do.”

He pulled her closer. Her foot caught on something on the floor and crashed into him. The two of them laughed. Alan had been knocked over and Sara was on top of him.

With eyes closed their lips met. His lips suddenly went limp.

“Jerk,” she whispered. “I want a redo when your awake.”

There was no response from him. She got up and straighten him out on the bed. She ended with throwing a blanket over him before leaving the room.

Alan awoke to find himself in bed and not really remembering how he got there. He recognized the sleeping quarters, given he designed it. It wasn’t much more than a place to sleep, get cleaned up, and put on a change of clothes. It was more luxurious than a prison cell, but not by much. He never figured to spend much time here, so the cost of cozy amenities didn’t make sense to him.

On a small shelf next to the door was a stack of fresh clothes with a hand written note on top. He pulled his body up and took up the note. ‘Hurry up!’ it read. There was a heart drawn next to her name at the bottom. Faint pieces of memories from last night began to emerge. He wasn’t sure if they were even real or not.

He remembered a thought to kiss her last night, but he couldn’t remember if he had actually followed through on that or not. He got himself showered and changed. He stopped by what was considered the kitchen area. It was nothing more than a food preparation setup embedded into a wall to keep it out of the way. He found a mug and checked the coffee making apparatus.

There was no coffee. He looked in a few other places where food would be stored. There was some of the items that the Saru found palatable stocked up. Coffee wasn’t a concoction of his they liked. They preferred a spiced ball that when Alan tried one, he thought he was going to die from having his insides on fire. He gave up and put the mug away.

He moved on to the workshop area of the mobile base. It was the largest section.

“I knew it!”

Alan looked up and saw Sara sitting back in one of the chairs near the projection table. She was wearing something new. It looked like one of those skin hugging suits the exercise junkies wore. It left nothing to the imagination of her curves.

His eyes were glue to her. “I... Uh... you knew what?”

“I knew this would be the first place you would come after getting cleaned up. Right back to work.” She got up from the chair and walked over to him. “You’re so predictable, it’s easy to ambush you.”

Alan raised and eyebrow. “Ambush me? Whatever for?”

She got right up close to him. Her face within inches of his. “You cheated me out of something I was really looking forward to, mister!”

“I barely remember much of anything last night.”

“You owe me something,” She smiled seductively as she put her arms around his waist. Her warm body pressed up against his. She had a fragrant smell that Alan found appealing.

He wrapped his arms around her and began to kiss her.

“Alan, Alan, Alan!”

He could hear the patter of tiny thumping on the textured metal plating. He groaned.

“For real!” she whispered.

“Apparently the doors need to be secured as if we were in the forest.”

The small Saru bolted into the brightly lit shop area. Alan kept his hold on Sara, not wanting to give up being so close to her. She didn’t pull away, only turned her head to see the intruder on their moment.

The Saru came to a screeching halt upon seeing them. It looked confused. “Humans baby make in a workshop?!” The Saru got a disgusted look on it’s face. “Ewe.”

Sara laughed.

“No, we were not, and don’t. We do that in private places.”

“Oh... okay.” The creature grinned. “Oh!” the grin disappeared again, “Ustobo found bugs. They smashed them all. No more pictures or videos.”

“That was bound to happen. I’ll see if I can come up with something different.”

“We didn’t get to explore for turrets. I’m sorry.”

Alan nodded sympathetically.

“Naju came back hurt this morning. Five others died with him. Ustobo changed how they fight again. Naju asked me to come tell you.”

Sara pulled away and grabbed a vest to put on.

“How bad is he hurt?”

“It’s bad. He will live. Father will fix him up like he did you.”

“Is Father still doing that even after we fight the Ustobo?”

“Yes. Father won’t help us fight anymore, but he’s still happy to heal and repair us Saru. He seems sad these days. I think he feels bad for us. Maybe he thinks all Saru are going to die now.”

“What kind of talk is that?”

The Saru looked down. “Alan, many of us are scared. Things are not like they were. We’ve had more deaths in the last few months than we have had for many years. Now Father is not helping us fight the aliens. Some Saru say this is all your fault. Other’s say we would already be dead and the planet fallen to the Ustobo if you hadn’t come and saved us. The rest don’t know what to think.”

Alan grabbed a few items before turning back to the Saru. “We are not defeated. I will do everything I can to prevent that from happening. My life is on the line the same as yours. Take us to Naju. I need to know what happened.”