The brainwashing device's results were, on balance, cleaner than Nolan had expected.
Klaue returned to the base lobby within a reasonable timeframe, scrubbed of the mercenary remnants that had been covering him, wearing the particular expression that brainwashed individuals wore in the early period: a slightly uncertain smile, as though the face was still calibrating which default setting to use. He performed the Aquila salute with the awkwardness of someone who had learned the gesture approximately twelve minutes ago and was applying it with great sincerity regardless.
Then he talked.
At length. Nolan had anticipated something useful and received something comprehensive: Klaue's full operational history, his supply networks, his Wakandan intelligence, and also, unprompted, a thorough accounting of his personal psychology regarding the subject. As a white South African black-market arms dealer and smuggler who had spent decades operating adjacent to one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet, Klaue had developed a complex relationship with Wakanda that was primarily composed of envy and had expressed itself as antagonism. The secrecy policy. The vibranium that never reached the outside market. The simple, stubborn fact of a nation possessing technology that made the rest of the world look primitive, and Klaue's own responses to that fact, which he outlined without any apparent awareness that the outline was unflattering.
Nolan did not have particular feelings about Wakandans one way or another. He needed vibranium. If the conditions ever aligned for a direct approach to Wakanda's own technological reserves, that was a separate question for a later time. For now, Klaue's knowledge of the margins was what mattered.
He sent Klaue back out the same day, leading several Gang Dog combat teams, destination the African continent. The mission parameters were simple: acquire as much vibranium and associated technical data from Wakanda's periphery as possible through whatever channels Klaue's expertise made available. The operation would continue until Klaue was captured by Wakandan forces or the resource was exhausted. Either outcome would provide useful information.
The other administrative matter David raised was Titania.
She had been held in the Twin Islands base since the early Serbia operation, longer than Nolan had tracked precisely, and David's update confirmed that she had finally chosen cooperation. She had since been processed through the same brainwashing protocol and assigned to Jessica's staff as a combat instructor for the agent trainees, a role that suited her capabilities and placed her somewhere useful. Nolan acknowledged the update and filed it.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who had been held alongside her were a different question. He had been considering a straightforward brainwashing protocol for them as well, treating them as a contained security risk that had been sitting in the base too long. Then he thought about Natasha, who had not yet returned from the extended Black Widow hunting operation she was running, and who was still, whatever else she was, a member of the team. Her former subordinates were her people before they were a security consideration. It was worth leaving that decision until she could participate in it. He noted it for later and moved on.
The foundry on Second Son Island smelled of hot metal and the specific ozone note of power fields under load.
Nolan stood in the middle of it with an Antarctic vibranium power sword in his hands, running the blade against a shell of original vibranium armour, the decomposition force field activated at full intensity. The contact produced a sound and produced nothing else. The shell was completely unmarked. He ran the test again from a different angle, varying the force, and achieved the same result.
He set the vibranium sword aside and picked up the C'tan Phase Sword.
The original vibranium shell split in two on the first pass.
Nolan looked at the two halves on the workbench for a moment. "I overestimated the vibranium," he said, "or underestimated the Necron. Possibly both."
"My lord." Doom's voice came from behind him, the sorcerer moving between the foundry's equipment with the ease of someone who had made the space his own over the past months. Several mechanical arms extended from the harness behind his silver armour, one of them holding a data-slate with test results, the others at rest. "Original vibranium already exceeds essentially every material produced by human science. I have run every test category. Explosive ordnance of all standard types, power sword variants, las-weapon discharges: none of them affect the external surface. Melta bombs breach it, but that is less a vibranium limitation than a statement about melta bombs specifically. There is no substance I have encountered that melta bombs do not eventually resolve."
"The problem is output." Nolan turned the C'tan blade in his hand and set it down carefully on the rack beside the sheared armour halves. "Even with Klaue's channels, even with whatever he brings back from his current assignment, the total quantity of original vibranium available outside Wakanda is not large enough to do anything with at scale. What we have here went almost entirely into this armour shell, and there was barely enough for that."
"Which is correct prioritisation." Doom tilted his head slightly, the mechanical arms shifting in adjustment. "Your armour warrants the finest materials available. For the Gang Dogs and the broader combat formations, auxiliary power armour in mass production quantities achieves everything tactically necessary. The vibranium is best understood as a strategic reserve material rather than a manufacturing input."
"Agreed." Nolan nodded slowly. "Leave enough for your research. The rest stays in the shell."
He was quiet for a moment, looking at the foundry space and thinking about the auxiliary power armour stockpile that had been accumulating. Enough to arm the Gang Dogs in full, according to the latest inventory David had sent him.
"Speaking of which," he said, turning back to Doom. "The Gang Dogs having auxiliary power armour available is useful. Converting them all to Stormtrooper status at once is not the right move yet. Keep the prospect visible enough to be motivating, but don't formalise it across the board." He paused. "However. You should pick five from them for your own team. People you know well enough to trust and who you think can work with you specifically. They will be your Stormtroopers, your personal guard when you need it. Your call on who."
Doom was quiet for a moment.
"Understood," he said finally, and the way he said it suggested he had already been running through the candidates.
He started with the Gang Dog everyone called Toothless, whose actual name was Luther, and whose tooth had famously not grown back from the panacea incident and who had not complained about it once. From there Doom worked through his own internal list, selecting people he had trained alongside, whose capabilities and temperaments he had assessed through shared brutal experience. By the end of the day, he had his five.
Nolan did not ask for the names immediately and did not intervene in the selection. The Stormtroopers' second team or Doom Squad was Doom's responsibility now. That was the point.
He was in his private lounge reviewing the support prayer task list, the new Golden Throne rotation spread across the simulator interface, when David came through the door at a pace that was not David's default pace.
"My lord." The blue light in David's eyes was moving the way it moved when something required immediate attention. "There is a situation at the Japanese base. Mariko has sent a request for assistance."
Nolan looked up from the interface. "Bucky is there. Old John is there. Mariko has the Yashida clan infrastructure and her own resources. What kind of situation requires a direct request?"
"An external attack, my lord." David stopped in the centre of the room, the posture carrying the particular quality of an entity delivering information it would have preferred not to be delivering. "Bucky, John, and the others encountered the invaders and were forced to withdraw with significant injuries. The Yashida ninja units suffered heavy casualties. The base's current holding position exists only because the superpowered mercenaries that Mariko's people recruited as additional security performed better than expected in the initial engagement." The blue light steadied. "The base is intact, but the situation requires your personal assessment. We do not yet have complete information on what we are dealing with or what losses have been sustained."
Nolan set the simulator interface aside and stood up.
"Get the Thunderhawk ready," he said.
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