It didn’t take long for M357 to confirm that the structure they’d just disabled was absolutely filled with Microbe ID f420b750b12e. While the machinery had been demolished for the moment, it was extremely clear that if the site was left unattended it would very quickly recover and go right back to working towards another fireball.

Quickly conferring with some of the other squirrels, M357 radioed back to the thicket. They would need hundreds of boomnuts here as quickly as possible, since the site needed to be converted to a squirrel fortress in order to eliminate the microbial threat lurking below. Very quickly, M357 got a reply telling him to hold position until relieved.

One of the other squirrels with M357 called back to note that they had depleted their stocks of explosive and incendiary munitions and their ability to hold would be very limited, especially since a large number of predators were starting to show interest in the site.

Sure enough, M357 could clearly see beam stalkers lurking in the brush around the site along with several other organisms. A salvo of mind control quills at each of the uppity investigating predators quickly sent them on their way to the compost heap, but it was very clear that was a solution with only limited viability.

Case in point, M357 only barely managed to dodge a harpoon from an Impaler Beast, returning fire with mind control quills as the barbed tendril was retracted. The Impaler fired again, spearing M357 right through the center of mass as it started to pull him back in.

Just off to one side F999 watched helplessly as her fellow squirrel was pulled in and devoured by the ravenous predator, busily keeping an eye out for other incoming threats. The nanoweapons coursing through the Impaler’s bloodstream finally took hold and it started back towards the nearest squirrel nest, but it was already far too late for M357.

Then F999 heard something wonderful from above, as the call of an ally thrush sounded over her. Several boomnuts fell from above as the birds descended to keep an eye on the situation, the level of stress dropping massively as F999 ate one nut to regrow some of her quills then set about planting the rest around the conical structure.

According to the radio there were still several minutes before the rest of the artillery squirrels sent for relief would arrive, but F999’s stress levels were massively declining now that she didn’t need to worry about holding a hostile location with only mind control quills and no air support.

A hundred kiloseconds later, the fortress around the cone was now well established with boomnuts growing rapidly, a basic set of dug fortifications and burrows set up around the perimeter, and the ground below finally purged of nuke-happy microbes.

M1011 was resting in the fortress in question when he heard the alarm; another concentration site had been detected. So somewhat grumpily the squirrel stowed a couple boomnuts in his cheeks, formed up with about fifty others, and off they went to go lock down the area and avoid another nuclear fireball happening right in the middle of their turf.

This one was going fairly well all things considered; the laser falcons were easy enough to eliminate with surface to air missiles and the guard animals around the pit didn’t take too much effort now that the artillery squirrels and thrushes knew what they were dealing with.

However, M1011 noticed something on the horizon that called for an immediate halt. There were hundreds of Brose’s Wyverns in the area, all circling a site like they did on their nesting grounds. That presented if anything an even worse threat to the squirrels than the fireballs did.

So M1011 quickly radioed back to base, asking about what to do. There weren’t any squirrel nests in the blast radius of the concentration site if it managed to go off, however the Brose’s Wyvern nest might be in range. So M1011 got the order to go investigate and measure the distance between the dragon nesting grounds and the concentration site, while the rest of the squirrels evacuated the blast radius.

Grudgingly M1011 marched off towards where he saw the wyverns, keeping to cover as much as possible. After around three minutes of walking M1011 spotted the nest and was immediately able to confirm that yes, the dragons living there were definitely in the blast radius of the concentration site.

That done, M1011 immediately started scurrying back to (relative) safety as fast as he could possibly manage. He had to blow up several ambush predators en route including a pair of cloaking shockers and a holosnake, but those were relatively minor concerns compared to getting out of the way of that many Brose’s Wyverns and also escaping the blast radius of the concentration site.

Despite his panic M1011 managed to make it back to base unharmed, and immediately got a chance to rest before he was put on minefield duty.

About forty kiloseconds after that, the concentration site exploded as the squirrels had expected it to do. Fortunately they didn’t have to deal with any casualties or destroyed nests this time, but they still heard the roar of the blast and felt the ground shaking beneath their feet.

M1407 was immediately assigned as part of the crew to investigate the Wyvern nesting site and secure the crater, getting the obligatory two boomnuts as they prepared to go secure the new territory that had just been blasted clear of any possible competition.

The walk into the blasted wasteland was eerily silent once they got past the chaotic rush of various deadly organisms dashing around in a panic about what just happened. In comparison to the rest of Blackwood, the burnt and blasted no beast’s land in and around the crater was almost serene.

Sure enough, the wyverns’ nesting grounds looked to have been completely incinerated by the nuclear fireball. There wasn’t a single trace of living cells anywhere on the surface, and the ground had been thoroughly glassed.

M1407 radioed back to confirm, and was told to dig in and establish a squirrel fortress on the site. Looking at the fused glassy terrain, the squirrel would have been tempted to sarcastically ask how if that sort of neural wiring had been included. But it hadn’t, so instead the squirrel simply used a few high explosive quills to blast a divot in the ground, before setting down a boomnut in growth mode.

Slowly, agonizingly the leaves started to appear as the nut greedily soaked up the rain that was even now beginning to fall. The roots started eating their way into the glassy terrain to get at the dirt below the surface level.

Now the question was how to go about fortifying the site; there were some leftover bumps and dips in the terrain from the incinerated remains of the Wyvern nest and the symbiote would eat through it to make soil in a while, but at the moment it presented the problem of being nearly impossible to dig through without putting in a blast.

Fortunately they had a fair number of boomnuts on hand in addition to what was “planted”, so M1407 joined the rest of the squirrel team in doing just that, blasting the ground with high explosives to try and pulverize it to a state they could work with. This kind of worked, but it was also very slow going, and was burning through the onsite stocks of explosives like nobody’s business.

Fortunately everyone still had a good deal of ordnance left when the next fifty squirrels showed up to relieve them, M1407 marching back to base to rest and recuperate for a while as the next crew worked.

The second crew quickly exhausted all their explosives working the terrain into a suitable form, as did the third and the fourth. It wasn’t until the fifth group of squirrels that the crater base reached a tolerably habitable condition, the barren glassed scar in the wasteland still having not been fully recolonized by Blackwood’s incredibly dangerous biosphere yet.

Meanwhile off on the entire other side of squirrel territory, a routine scouting mission by the ally thrushes had discovered a newly dug concentration site far too close to the thicket for safety.

F1440 was assigned as part of the task force sent to put a stop to this particular threat, along with another sixty squirrels. That said, there was an issue; while the concentration site was less than three kilometers away, there was a river between the thicket and the target. This didn’t present much issue for the ally thrushes since they were very capable of flight, but it presented a major challenge for the artillery squirrels, who didn’t have any terribly good ways of crossing the river.

Yes, the artillery squirrels could swim. However the aquatic organisms who had actually been designed for river swimming were far better at it and few would turn down such easy prey as a land-dweller trying to cross. In addition the fact that the river was an aquatic environment negated the squirrels’ best defense, since their quills would quickly lose momentum in the dense fluid medium and they lacked any that were suitable for underwater self-propulsion.

So when she reached the edge of the river, F1440 found herself looking into the depths with a distinct feeling of apprehension. The ally thrushes could not airlift her across, they simply lacked the lift capacity. Trying to float or swim across meanwhile would be an act of suicide on account of the many vicious predators and even the occasional opportunistic herbivore or omnivore lurking in the water.

It was actually one of the ally thrushes who suggested bombing their way across; if they dropped several hundred boomnuts into the river and detonated them all at once, then it would briefly clear a volume of water. F1440 radioed back to the thicket and the plan was quickly approved, a massive flock of ally thrushes getting together to airlift bombs for deployment into the river.

It only took a couple kiloseconds for everything to be ready, hundreds of boomnuts having already fallen into the river where the needlefish and other horrific creatures were curiously inspecting them. Then F1440 sent the command to detonate.

Immediately the river fountained up in a massive geyser of water, foaming white from the level of energy imparted by the blast. Before the water had even started to fall, F1440 ordered the charge across the river, dashing forwards to the riverbank with every bit of speed she could muster. The rest of the squirrels followed after, and soon they were in the water.

Swimming frantically towards the other side, F1440 spotted an Impaler Beast lurking on the other shore, doubtless waiting for the squirrels to get into range for some impromptu spearfishing. F1440 was having precisely none of that, and immediately fired thirty high explosive quills into the beast, which dutifully tore its launching trunk to ribbons.

Gruesomely injured and with its main weapon disabled, the Impaler Beast slunk off to lick its wounds. A few moments later F1440 managed to reach land, scrabbling desperately back up onto solid ground. Another few moments passed as F1440 waited for the rest of the squirrels to get out of the water, but upon a more thorough counting it was clear that they’d lost twenty one squirrels in the crossing. The river was already turning into a feeding frenzy as various organisms took their chance to eat squirrels and the exploded corpses alike.

Still, F1440 was across along with more than thirty other artillery squirrels, and they had a concentration site to shut down before it could blow up the others that they’d left behind. So onward they trudged, keeping to cover in order to avoid being spotted by the obviously suborned laser falcons circling ominously overhead.

Carefully keeping watch of what the falcons were doing, F1440 spotted one of them coming in closer for an investigative swoop, and immediately responded by firing off two hundred surface to air missile quills.

The entire rest of the laser falcon swarm around the concentration site was alerted instantly as the laser-armed bird frantically tried to shoot down the incoming missiles, squawking out alerts on all the radio channels it had. Still, fifty missile quills slammed home, sending the falcon into a burning tailspin right towards the ground.

The other thirty falcons in the air had immediately whirled around at the alert, only for the remaining squirrels to unleash a combined salvo of thousands of surface to air missiles. Hundreds of them were shot down as they crossed the intervening airspace, but hundreds wasn’t enough. Within seconds every last laser falcon had been hit several times and blasted out of the sky, with the ally thrushes quickly descending to finish the job with their electrified talons.

Now that the airspace was clear F1440 could advance, the concentration site quickly coming into view amid a throng of suborned animals. There was a bit of structure sticking out of the pit, but not too much considering the circumstances, meaning this site was still in the early phases. On the other hand, that was a lot of laser sheep and railgun bears guarding the site, presenting a major problem for any further attempts to get through. The thrushes couldn’t get too much closer without being lasered out of the sky, and being subjected to railgun bear counter-battery fire wasn’t any squirrel’s idea of a good time.

So F1440 watched from the top of a hill as she tried to work out a plan. Then she noticed that the particular types of grass growing around the concentration site were a particularly flammable variety, liable to go up in a blaze the moment it was ignited.

So in her capacity as artillery spotter, F1440 radioed back to the other squirrels for an incendiary strike on the site. After a moment or so, the barrage of quills arcing through the sky was quite evident to F1440, but the laser goats apparently didn’t spot it at first. Then the quills slammed home into the ground, touching off their payload of solid rocket fuel.

The grass immediately lit off into a massive inferno, flames roaring across the landscape as temperatures near the concentration site started approaching 800 Kelvin, well beyond the survivable temperature range for any of the animal species involved in guarding. Still, despite the inferno none of them made to escape, the simple programming of the nanoweapons using them as guards preventing them from exercising their normal survival instincts.

Momentarily checking to ensure that the grass she was hiding in was a flame-resistant variety, F1440 settled in to wait. It took a couple kiloseconds of waiting for the fire to burn out, but sure enough it depleted its fuel and the squirrels could move in to investigate the site in more detail.

A couple dozen boomnuts chucked in the hole proved quite capable of disabling all the machinery that was currently operating down there, but that still left the major issue of the microbes that had started the whole mess lurking beneath the surface.

Fortunately, it was already known that the symbiote was more than capable of beating Microbe ID f420b750b12e in a fight. And both boomnuts and the mind control quills had an ample supply of symbiote to go around.

So F1440 and the rest of the squirrels started digging in to plant their boomnuts even as they fired all their mind control quills into the ground to unleash their nanoweapon payload. Still, now came the hard and brutal job of holding the site against the entirety of Blackwood until it could be made into a full-fledged squirrel fort.

There wouldn’t be any reinforcements; crossing that river had been ruinously expensive in both boomnuts and squirrel lives. By the same token, retreat was impossible; there was no way they’d ever make it back across the river intact. The full extent of logistical support they could receive would be care packages of boomnuts airlifted by the ally thrushes.

So F1440 started in on the digging, with the absolute first priority being a nursery chamber. The squirrels needed a way to replenish their numbers to survive, and the only way that would be happening was if they started reproducing.

With thirty squirrels on excavation duty, that left nine for guarding. M2091 was one of the squirrels in that role, frantically scanning the airspace and brush for threats as he tried to protect the other squirrels. The planted boomnuts had just barely poked through the ground and started putting out their first leaves by the time M2091 spotted the first threat in the form of a beam stalker lurking in the bushes.

M2091 immediately fired a high explosive quill at it, the blast sending the predator scurrying off to lick its wounds. Still, that particular predator wasn’t the worst case scenario.

No, the worst case scenario was the sneaky predators that were already trying to sneak into the nest. Case in point, M2091 only barely detected a holographic snake attempting to enter the under construction nursery room. A split second later he’d impaled it with a deactivated high-explosive quill, the simple kinetic energy being quite sufficient to immobilize the snake up against a wall.

Then M2091 closed in for the kill. The snake was definitely a biter rather than a squeezer, and the fact that M2091’s back was covered in barbed quills made landing a bite nearly impossible. The snake had no such defense now that its stealth had been ruined, and a furious artillery squirrel started ripping the uppity snake to shreds.

As he surfaced again M2091 noted that the boomnut bushes were growing rapidly now, and the thrushes had come through on delivering some supplies. Native boomnut production still wasn’t up and running, but it would be coming soon, and in the meantime at least he had something to eat.

As M2091 dipped down into the tunnels to eat a nut and replenish his ammunition reserves, another squirrel was quickly overseeing the situation to figure out what if anything would need doing. The burrows already had rooms designated for boomnut storage, nurseries, resting, waste disposal, and drainage. Similarly the boomnut bushes were already progressing as fast as they could. The only real thing left to do aside from reproduction, waiting, and embiggering the burrows was to get on with the defensive berms.

So F1600 got to work on the digging, engaging in the agonizingly slow process of shoving dirt into position. Even with twenty other squirrels on the job it was slow going, but between guard duty and ensuring the first litters of pups came out properly there simply weren’t enough others on hand to make it go smoothly.

A few kiloseconds in there was a call for all topside squirrels to strike a lurking pack of Siege Oxen that had been trying to sneak up on the nest, the heavily armored herbivores absorbing hundreds of high explosive and incendiary quills each before they finally retreated. Still, aside from that interruption there wasn’t much to the work aside from simple monotonous labor.

After a while, F1600 shifted off the berm construction job to go get something to eat and take a nap. As she did so, she noted that the bush closest to the pit was finally sporting a ripe boomnut, ready to be plucked and eaten. F1600 did so, chewing on the nut as she made her way down into the burrows. There was still a long way to go, but with the boomnuts finally ripe for harvest and the first batch of pups well on their way to being born, the first squirrel nest on this side of the river had finally been fully established.

A couple kiloseconds later, squirrel F2331 was born into the world in the burrows beneath that self-same nest along with five other pups. She was quickly picked up by one of the squirrels acting as nursemaid and placed up against the nipples on her mother’s belly, drinking greedily of the milk that flowed forth.

She was still nowhere near ready to face the world, and wouldn’t be fully matured for another two hundred and ninety kiloseconds. But she couldn’t get the rest of the way internally to her mother, meaning that she had to do it externally.

After a few minutes of breastfeeding, F2331 pulled away from her mother and switched to F1600, who was currently on nursemaid duty. There was still a lot of milk-feeding to go before her teeth and digestive system would be ready to eat boomnuts, but her mother was out of milk for now and another source was required.

Still, that source was available, the nest was relatively safe for the time being, and the future was looking bright for the artillery squirrels, the boomnut bushes, and their symbiotic partners. Even better, by all appearances that bright future didn’t seem to be illuminated by the onrushing inferno of a nuclear fireball.

Back in the lab on Bark, I had opted to wear my androgynous body to the award ceremony after much mulling over what if any gender I felt like this morning. On the other hand I was distinctly stuck on what clothing to wear on top of it. Did I wear a dress, a two-piece, jeans and a jacket, or something completely different? I knew I definitely didn’t want to go nude, but trying to figure out an outfit was proving very difficult.

I spent several minutes staring at my closet paralyzed with indecision as I tried to come up with something, before Wesseck eventually came and found me.

Wesseck said “So, any reason you can’t just wear your normal casual clothes to the award ceremony? I’m not planning on wearing anything special.” as they looked around at my wardrobe.

I replied “But I’m going to be on live broadcast in front of the entirety of Bark! Everyone’s going to see me and judge me for it.”

Wesseck blinked, before replying “If you care that much about not being judged for your appearance, you should really just wear a rent-a-morph to the event. But seriously, just because we’re getting the platinum egg doesn’t mean that suddenly everyone is going to care what you look like. It’s not a fashion contest, we won a sporting event, plain and simple. It’s your capabilities that people are going to care about, not your looks.”

After a moment of thought, I asked “So you’re saying I should just wear something comfortable then, and not care what people think of me for it?”

My friend hummed happily as they answered “That’s exactly it, Yures! “

My worries somewhat assuaged, I put on a pair of athletic shorts and a tube top with a hole in the back for my wings. After a bit of fiddling I set the animation on the top to show some leaves swaying back and forth in the wind, which I thought looked nice.

Clothes picked out, I went down to breakfast. Wesseck had opted for a simple white jumpsuit fitted for their spidery form. Meanwhile Queen had gotten out the formal power armor again. We had a quick breakfast of omelets and sausage, then we made our way to the train station for the express line to the convention center. We were quickly shuffled off to the back stage areas, and after a few minutes we settled in to wait.

We were still waiting backstage for our public appearance. A gentle and dexterous bundle of tentacles named Hazel was helping me tidy up my appearance for the big event, when I finally got up the courage to ask “So, what exactly happened to get us the platinum egg anyway?”

After a few moments of silent staring, Hazel asked “You mean you still don’t know? Have you been living under a rock?”

As I hesitantly nodded to confirm, Hazel slumped for a bit and said “Alright, I’ll tell you.”

---

This is the free edition of The Blackwood Tourney. It is entirely pre-written, and will have one chapter released each week on Saturday. 
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