RTS System in the Apocalypse: New World

Hans stared at the folders occupying the left half of his desk.

Matilda was not there. That was probably why the stack had gotten this tall.

Whenever she handled the reports herself, Hans normally received one document at a time. She would place it in front of him, wait until he finished reading whatever section she wanted him to see, then replace it with another before he could pretend there was something more important waiting elsewhere.

This morning, somebody apparently decided he deserved the full experience.

He glanced toward the open doorway.

Callum stood outside with his arms folded behind him, his large frame taking up enough of the hallway that Hans almost wondered whether the man had been assigned there as a guard or as an additional door.

”Did Matilda leave all of these?”

Callum looked inside.

”Some of them, Commander.”

Hans’s eyes returned to the stack. ”And what about the rest?”

”Engineering sent two. Recovery sent three. Flight Operations sent one. Medical sent another.”

Callum paused.

”There are more outside.”

Hans stared at him. Callum remained perfectly straight-faced.

”Of course there are.”

Hans pulled the first folder toward himself. The cover carried a simple label.

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CURRENT FORCE ORGANIZATION

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The entire stack had been arranged more carefully than he first thought. Tabs separated the current formations, reserve strength, specialist personnel, production status, and several pages of recommendations Matilda expected him to read before doing anything else.

Hans opened the folder.

The first few pages were nothing Hans had not already seen over the past week. Most of the units had passed through his System interface the moment he approved their production, while Matilda handled where they would eventually end up once they were ready.

Hans brought up the personnel roster beside the report.

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[ Soldiers ]

Conscripts: 1,620

Army Soldiers: 2,580

Attack Dogs: 480

Scouts: 600

Snipers: 240

Engineers: 300

Medics: 320

Machine Gunners: 660

Guardian GIs: 480

Missile Infantry: 570

DASF Units: 120

[ Total Infantry Personnel: 7,970 ]

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The numbers had climbed quickly enough that Hans had stopped following every increase sometime during the week.

Twelve Mobile Companies were already operational, with four more still forming. Another 2,520 personnel sat outside them, guarding bases, secured roads, Strategic Facilities, construction sites, and the recovery network. The 120 DASFs remained separate, while Engineers and Medics were increasingly being pulled toward everything the advancing companies left behind.

Hans flipped to the armored section.

Four hundred eighty Guardian APCs. Three hundred Vanguards. Ninety-six Field Support Vehicles. One hundred twenty-eight Hellhammers, with another thirty-two under production.

Well. That escalated quickly.

Hans continued through another two pages.

The report was less about telling him what he owned and more about telling him where all of it had gone. One line near the end finally made him stop.

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Additional personnel recommended.

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Hans looked at the twelve completed companies again, then at the four still forming.

More?

Hans turned the page.

Matilda wanted another 1,440 personnel assigned to the rear establishment, including two hundred Engineers and one hundred sixty Medics. Every company that advanced created more roads, bases, recovery sectors, facilities, and construction sites that still needed people after the front moved on.

Her final note was considerably more direct.

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Priority: complete the rear establishment before authorizing additional Mobile Companies beyond Sixteenth Company.

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Matilda had finally found something she wanted him to stop producing. Sixteen companies were enough until somebody could clean up after them.

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RECOVERY AND CONVERSION SUMMARY

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Hans pulled it free from the stack. The folder barely closed around its contents.

He opened the first page. The dates covered the entire previous week.

He flipped past the daily entries.

The earlier pages still resembled the recovery reports he had been receiving since Highcross. The difference came farther down.

As more companies entered operation, the number of collection points increased with them. Recovery teams no longer waited for First or Second Company to finish an entire district before moving in.

Once a road and its surrounding blocks were released, security personnel took over and the recovery network followed while the mobile formations continued elsewhere.

By the middle of the week, several processing batches were arriving on the same day.

Hans reached the consolidated page.

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[ Seven-Day Recovery and Conversion Summary ]

Direct Conversion Income: +24,816,000 Gold

Industrial Storage Yard Bonus already included

Strategic Facility Income: +7,700 Gold

Military / Infrastructure Expenditure: -18,942,300 Gold

[ Current Gold: 5,944,882 ]

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Almost nineteen million Gold spent in a week, and he still had nearly six million left.

The recovery network had changed along with the army. It no longer followed one or two companies through a district. Several fronts were being processed at the same time, with security taking over cleared ground while the mobile formations kept moving.

Not everything became Gold either. Fuel, machinery, medical supplies, construction material, electrical equipment, food, tools, and anything worth rebuilding with remained physical.

At some point, Gold had stopped being the number Hans checked before deciding whether something was affordable. Now, he checked whether he had somewhere to build it.

Several months ago, spending nineteen million would have required him to rob half the country.

Hans closed the folder.

The next one carried the Engineering insignia.

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INFRASTRUCTURE EXPANSION AND CURRENT CONSTRUCTION

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There was another Engineering folder underneath it.

Hans’s unit production volume increased, but his Primary and Secondary Queues did not. And so, he trained several MCVs over the past few days. Though all slots per individual War Factory was used, it was better than bottlenecking himself because he could only build one Pillbox at a time.

Eight Construction Yards were now operating across the wider network.

Twenty-four Barracks, twelve War Factories, eight Physical Radar Facilities, four Airfields, and enough Power Plants to keep the expanding grid comfortably above current load.

Twenty-four of the thirty PCVs were already deployed.

The northwest no longer looked like a collection of separate FOBs. Westgate, Ironford, and the adjoining industrial sectors had expanded into a chain of overlapping construction zones, while newer positions had appeared around Cinderrow, the eastern routes, the western military bases, the Airport corridor, and the northern road toward Saicine.

The northern harbor city had received similar attention during the week.

Flight Operations continued rotating available Raptors not concerned with Grefort operations.

However, the recent expansion allowed permanent allocation of four Raptors toward the northern corridor for the opening phase, replacing the tedious rotations implemented earlier.

The restricted areas remained out of touch, but concentrations along the northern approaches and already-condemned sections of the lower city had been struck repeatedly.

They had made the northern side considerably quieter than Raptor Seven and Eight first recorded.

Hans flipped another page, then a new line caught his attention.

More Construction Yards recommended.

He closed his eyes for a moment. ”Just how many construction do we need? Has this become a Construction System?!”