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As the war dragged on, both superpowers continued to pour
funds into the cause. It soon became difficult for them to
hide this constant drain from their citizens. After the defeat
of the Furies, the United States and the USSR signed a secret
treaty, and their respective bio-metal projects were disbanded.
Trouble was, they had all these veterans who officially didn’t
exist. The Soviets elected to ignore their veterans, consigning
them to their fate. It was easier for us NSDF folks. The government
offered to take us back, a few at a time, and give us new
lives and identities. But, since we couldn’t have any contact
with our previous lives, most of us ended up staying in the
Outer Solar system.
They say there
is nothing more dangerous than an idle soldier…
It only took about 2 months for the fighting
to break out again in the Outer Solar System. This time, it
wasn’t NSDF on CCA. It was squadron on squadron, soldier on
soldier. Over time, the fighting began to take its toll. Resources
became scarce, and the bio-metal began to run out. Some of
us banded together, formed our own squadrons and tried to
stay out of the way. Some of us struck out on our own, trying
to find peace on some small, isolated moon. By this time,
it didn’t matter who had been NSDF and who had been CCA.
After
a while, some of us got sick of all the fighting and dying.
Soon, we had been fighting for so long we had
forgotten just about everything else. It took an old NSDF
general to save all our behinds. Recognizing our need to fight,
as well as our need for peace, he organized the first Call
of the Wild. It was sorta like the Olympics, except with tanks.
The idea was to allow us to hone our skills without killing
each other, and to expand our technological horizons. Soon,
several prototype tanks, a new walker design, and an experimental
infantry combat suit were being fielded in the games. Over
time, however, it did more than improve our weaponry. It forged
a bond between the participants stronger than anything we
had known before. And, most importantly, it gradually stopped
the fighting.
And then the Cybrids
came for us.
One of our mining installations on Pluto had
recorded a sudden spike in EM radiation along the planet’s
southern pole. During the night, we lost contact with the
station, and by morning, the entire planet was silent. We
sent two patrols in to check things out. Neither returned,
though the second one did manage a brief transmission. We
all watched the recorded transmission together, crowded into
the command center of the recycler Odyssey.
The fear inside
that command center was so palpable you could have cut it
out of the air and served it on a plate.
Walkers. Dozens of walkers. Except these moved
much faster than any walker we had ever developed. As we watched,
one of the Grendels in the scout unit planted two heavy rockets
square into one of the walker’s chests. As we watched, the
rockets spattered harmlessly against some kind of EM forcefield
covering the walker. As we watched, the walker turned and
vaporized the Grendel with two homing missiles. The pilot
did not eject.
All through the
next day, soldiers fought and died while we studied the incoming
data.
Finally, we had it. MAG cannon. Our scientists
felt confident that the EM pulse put out by the weapon would
be sufficient to disrupt the enemy’s shields long enough for
other weapons to take effect. But we had uncovered more data
that was less encouraging. Our communications experts had
intercepted and decoded several enemy transmissions. Though
we could not fully translate them, it was readily apparent
what the transmissions were. Computer code. Which meant machine
intelligence. And there seemed to be one line of code that
appeared in virtually all of the intercepted transmissions.
Kill humans.
The menace of
the Furies appeared reborn in a new shape. Except this time
it possessed cold, hard intelligence in the form of an AI
named “Prometheus”. Things did not look well.
During the next week, we lost Charon, then Miranda,
and then Triton. A crack unit of former Black Dog squadron
members had been formed, and when they made contact with the
enemy, their MAG cannon and RED field generators allowed them
to rack up an impressive amount of kills. Unfortunately, this
unit couldn’t be everywhere at once. And when the local garrisons
engaged these so-called “Cybrids”, they were slaughtered to
the last man. It was clear we needed something more to survive
this new menace. And that something was to come from the most
unexpected place…
War
can change a man in the most unexpected ways.
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