We Are Legion (We Are Bob) Book 3: Chapter 19: Cities Attacked

Marcus

September 2215

Poseidon

“They’ve done it. They’ve actually gone and done it!” Vinnie waved his phone like a weapon as he stomped toward . Vinnie was not physically imposing, but sohow he managed to look like an unstoppable juggernaut when in his angry marching mode.

“And by it, you an…” Kal looked up from his tablet, where he’d been working on an engineering design for a new fish harvesting system.

A dozen of us sat or reclined on the ring of grass that ford the periphery of the flying city of Amhor. Most residents who could manage it perford their daily duties on lawn chairs or even on blankets. The air circulation systems were very carefully designed to keep the air temps down around a comfortable spring day in our dod environnt—and it helped that fibrex didn’t trap infrared like traditional glass.

Life was hell, but we tried to bear up under the burden.

Vinnie threw himself down on the grass and tossed his phone onto a nearby side table. “The Council has declared us deserters and forbidden any contact. They’re confiscating any assets owned by any city resident that they can get their hands on, and issued warrants for our arrest.”

This wasn’t really unexpected. In fact, it had taken a month longer than the date I’d originally estimated. If the Council had any brains at all, they’d be trying to pull the teeth of the biggest single threat to their rule——right about now. I checked my feeds and, sure enough, I’d been locked out of colony patrol, monitoring, defense, and infrastructure channels.

Damn. That ant I would no longer be able to spend my ti monitoring things for them, fixing things for them, running things for them…boo hoo. I grinned, and Kal looked at quizzically.

“I think I’ve just been fired.” I shrugged at him. “Spares the trouble of quitting, I guess.”

“What are we going to do?” asked one of the planning techs, a blonde woman nad Freida.

“Nothing,” I replied. “I’ve exchanged words with the Council the last couple of months. I’ve made it clear to them that we, and especially I, won’t fire the first shot. But that if they try to get their way by violence or war, they’d have the entire Bobiverse to deal with. So I don’t actually expect any shooting. Just legal maneuvering and threats.”

“And economic sanctions. They’ve cut off all trade, all contact.” Kal shrugged at .

“What exactly are they cutting us off from, Kal?” Denu leaned back on an elbow and glared at Kal with an eyebrow arched. “We have a third of the planet’s population, but we produce half the food calories. Most of the technical people transferred to the cities in the first month. Manufacturing is off-planet, so we have as good access to it as they do—”

“That may not be entirely true,” I said. Everyone looked at .

I shrugged. “I’ve been checking statuses as we’ve been talking. The Council seems to have managed to garrison all the materials stocks in the Lagrange points.” I tried to wave up an image, then rembered that I wasn’t in VR. Instead, I sent a feed to any tablets in our group. “I guess it explains why they were so slow to act—they were taking the extra ti to get into position. My drones are showing Council security forces occupying strategic locations around the stockpiles. And,” I added, shaking my head, “looks like they’ve laid claim to the Lagrange autofactories as well.”

“Are the Bobs going to take that lying down?” Kal glared at .

I chuckled in response. “Well, the Bobs consists of , in this system, so not very much of a threat. I have ship busters, but they’re only useful in a full-scale engagent. I’ve got so roars, but I wouldn’t want to sacrifice them in a guerilla war. I have my printers, but it would take ti to set up a full autofactory, and more ti to get mining going again.”

“So we’re dead in the water?”

“For the mont, as far as they know,” I responded. “But they also know we’ll rebuild our own resources in short order. They have to bring us to our knees before we can do so.”

“How?”

I shrugged. “Resource interdiction, which they’ve already done; denial of food sources, which they incorrectly think they can do; and cutting us off from any space assets, which I’m surprised to say they haven’t—”

At that mont, the signal from my decoy cut off. “Son of a bitch. They did it.”

All heads turned to stare at . I shrugged and gave them a twisted grin. “They just blew up!”