We are not safe…

26th July 2355, 10PM

I can’t reiterate enough the significance of a glass of Scotch in the comfort of your favourite couch. I am just appreciating the peace my home provides me. Husky is sitting beside me, licking himself, something he hadn’t been able to do because of our “field trip” at Sergei’s compound. I was examining the wound on my left arm a while ago and decided to record the final details of our expedition. Minerva is no more, because of me. She got what she deserved. She screwed with Chronos, repercussions of which are never good.

As I had already mentioned in the last entry, I was waiting near the perimeter wall. Husky’s body cam covered quite a wide angle. He had entered the building through the same gates from which the murderous robots had come out. From what I could see, it was a huge training area for soldiers and completely empty at that moment. I didn’t let Husky get cocky even for a second. His safety was paramount. I commanded him to stick to the walls or large objects as much as possible and his cloak did the rest of the job. I looked around and found security cams in every corner of that war room. After roaming about for a while, Husky was able to find the exit. He crossed the two large doors to enter another large area. The long rows of plants told me it was a greenhouse. I wish I had more time to observe the area. The plants were nothing like I had seen before. Some of them were even responding to Husky’s presence. I asked Husky to keep his head low and move steadily. The greenhouse was really large and very weird even by my standards. Sergei was not as myopic as I had assumed. Not only that, this also meant he had lied to us. I knew something was wrong since the beginning of the journey. Sergei’s eyes didn’t sit right by me. I have never been someone to take such matters lightly. As soon as I had realised the fact that Sergei had again being deceptive I called Phil.

Phil responded to my call in his usual manner, “Yeah, speak.”

I said hastily, “send an assassin to Sergei’s cell ASAP. Patch me through the comm of that soldier.” On the other hand, I asked Husky to get out of the greenhouse and stay in a corner. I needed to show Sergei the level of torture I can dole out.

In about a minute Phil called me back, “I have sent the Jonas. He will reach in twenty seconds.” I had the visual and the audio soon. Sergei looked up at the assassin and said, “I don’t think you found what you imagined in the building” and he started laughing hysterically. Somehow, he managed to speak, “You all will die here. I led you to a trap. I am not Sergei. I am just another clone. You will never find the real Sergei.”

I was extremely irritated and I have had enough at that time. I said to Jonas, “Can you please break Sergei’s left elbow and use his left arm to slap his face.” Jonas answered,”with pleasure.” He walked towards the clone and ripped off his arm from his elbow, followed by painful howls from Sergei. Then he slapped the clone’s face as I told him. I asked Jonas to allow me to speak, “Sergei’s clone or whatever you are, as you can see, I am in no mood for frivolities. I’ll ask questions and for each wrong answer, this guy in front of you will tear off a part of your body. Are you ready?”

Sergei’s clone was still howling. I asked Jonas to slap him again, the same way but harder. The second slap seemed to work. The clone said, “Sergei isn’t a human anymore. He managed to transfer his consciousness to a supercomputer long time ago. He procured research data from all over the world and perfected cloning. Then he made clones with different physical capabilities and transferred bits of his consciousness unto them.” I asked Jonas to hit him again.

Sergei was taken aback, “Why are you hitting me now? I am speaking the truth.” I replied, “I just felt like it. Continue”

“I am just one of the supervisors. I was tasked with overseeing the siege of your city. As soon as Sergei learnt of our capture, he started planning for the next step. Bringing you here was a trap. He had evacuated the facility before you arrived here. All the non fighting clones have been shifted to the other facility. I do not know anything more about his plan. Sergei maintained a strict need to know basis with his subordinates. With the fast calculating power of the supercomputer, he has been unstoppable. The machines you encountered are hardly the most lethal ones. There are worse below the ground level.”

As soon as I heard the last part, I asked Husky to return back to me. It would be very stupid to go in unprepared. I asked Jonas to amputate another hand of the clone and cauterize the wound for misguiding us before. I contacted the city administration and asked them to be on the lookout for another attack. As soon as Husky reached my position, we doubled back to our base. I needed to talk to the clone one on one.

Within thirty minutes I was in front of the clone. Fortunately, the prison van blocked all kinds of outside communication. So, the real Sergei, wherever he was, would not be able to contact his subordinates. I sat down in front of him, looked into his eyes and said, “You know what I’ll do to you if you lie to me again. I have a bunch of amazing doctors. I’ll make sure that you are alive to feel every kind of pain I inflict on you and I will be very slow. So, for your own sake, don’t test me. What else have you kept from me?”

I could smell the clone’s fear. He spoke slowly, “Sergei would kill me as it is. I was a supervisor, a clone with a part of Sergei’s consciousness. I oversaw weapons research. There are five others like me. The real Sergei does not come out of his strongroom which is at the bottom most level of the compound. We don’t even know whether he is in human form. Nothing goes in and nothing comes out. The last communication with him was before I was transferred into this vehicle.”

I asked him, “How much does Minerva know about Sergei? What was her role in your organization?”

Sergei looked at me and spoke, “She knows about the cloning and about real Sergei. She was the offspring of two of the clones and for some reason she showed intellectual promise. So, Sergei trained her to be a field agent. She was not associated with research directly but she did procure a lot of data from the outside world. She reported directly to Sergei and I have not much information about her reports.”

I said, “Okay, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I stepped out of his cell and went inside Minerva’s. She was defiant as ever. I was in no mood to tolerate her antics. So, before she could even utter a syllable, I shot her in the knee. Her eyes showed surprise at first which quickly filled with pain and fear and she cried out loud. I injected her with a pain inhibitor which I had taken earlier from a medic. I spoke to her in a calm tone, “I will ask questions, you will answer. If I feel that you are lying, I’ll shoot again. Where can I find your reports to Sergei?”

She replied while sobbing, “They are stored in the memory chip in my head. It cannot be accessed externally so forget about it.”

I stood up, shot her in the head and got out. I stepped out of the prison van and approached Phil. He looked at me, shell shocked. I said to him, “There’s a chip inside her head. Remove it inside the van so that Sergei can’t access it.”

Phil looked at the van behind me and said, “You shot her in cold blood. You maimed that clone even after he spoke the truth. I never dreamt of seeing you like this.”

I looked at him and said, “Phil, there are things in my past which were way worse. It’s better that you don’t dwell upon it.”

There was no point in staying there. We had no idea about Sergei’s plans as of now, neither were we prepared. There’s no dishonour in falling back to fight another day. I made sure that Minerva’s dead body reached Sergei’s facility before we left.

Mechanical Monsters!!!

I had no time to get shocked or recover from it. I shouted into my mic, “Mumbo and Jumbo, clear out your nearest platoons asap and switch to stealth mode. Get out of the compound. We need to redo our strategy.”

Jonas shouted back on the radio, “What the hell happened chief? Why are we turning back our asses?”

“Because if you don’t, there won’t be anything left of your asses to salvage. Now move it.”

Even though I had given orders to regroup, I couldn’t resist myself from taking a swing at one of those mechs. The onboard computer of my armour had been constantly making observations and analysing the robots since the moment I first saw them. Each of them, a mechanical monster, standing on legs resembling those of an ostrich but were as wide as stone columns and made of thick metal frame built around a complex network of hydraulics. The upper body started just above the knees which seemed to house a cooling system around the abdominal region and rocket launchers built inside the chest. The chest and abdomen were segregated, held together by a rotating joint. The arms were almost as thick as the legs and built similarly though, elbows were replaced with rotary cannons built inside a cooling system supported by metal frames. They had a fixed glass dome for a head which formed a housing for eight cameras which provided 360 degrees field of vision.

I saw the letters GOL2A on the bot nearest to me. I couldn’t reckon what those letters might stand for but it was clear that they were identifications. I marked it for attack. The robots had already started progressing towards Jonas’s team. I ran silently towards the marked one. Two soldiers jogged alongside each Goliath which itself moved with a certain air of brutish demeanor, the barrels of the gun rotating slowly. The hydraulics hissed with each step, steam being ejected from the cooling system at regular intervals. The metallic frame of their bodies gleamed under the floodlights. I could hear the soldiers tally with each other through the crackle of their comm systems. I was within a distance of thirty feet from GOL2A which stopped for a moment and looked in my direction. I could tell because two more cameras inside the dome had positioned above and below the two which were in my direction.

I stopped immediately, the soldiers had taken position besides the robot. Slowly, the torso turned facing me. It raised its arms and the cannons pointed towards me, the barrels spinning slowly. The mech stayed like that for a while which seemed like an eternity until the torso rotated back to its initial orientation and the mech started walking towards its original destination. I heaved a sigh of relief, I had made the armour based on precise calculations but hadn’t really had the time to test it. It was completed almost at the last moment. I didn’t know what would happen if I got hit by a missile or a grenade. I didn’t have to wait for too long.

I started jogging towards my target again and accessed the rifles on my arms with their silencer attachment activated. The guns sprang up from the flexor regions and slid along the wrist into my hands. The rifle butts unfolded from the rear of the weapons and got extended to rest on my shoulders. The problem with my armour while using the weapons was the stealth being lost in the regions near them. Attaching projectors on the concealed weapons and their controlling mechanisms had not been possible. While moving, the targetting system zoomed in on the two soldiers and marked their heads. I pointed my arms and fired the shots. The next thing I saw was the soldiers’ heads bursting like a watermelon and their bodies dropping followed by their mashed up brains. The robot turned around, four red cameras looking in my direction. I didn’t lose time and fired a missile at its head. The marker for the missile moved on the screen of my hood and then I saw it exploding on the mech’s glass dome. I was waiting for the robot to fall down but it didn’t happen. As the smoke cleared, I saw the cannons of the robot pointed at me, their rotation picking up speed. Before I could process, I saw a ring of smoke emanating from one of the barrels and everything shook around me with a loud boom. The next thing I felt was the ground disappearing from beneath my feet. I looked around and I saw myself flying in the air. Then came a loud thud. I had hit the boundary wall and now was falling down. I think I blacked out for a moment. I regained my senses after another thud. I could hear a faint screaming. I could recognise the voice as the screaming became louder. It was Jonas, “Chief, where the hell are you?” Everything was red around me. Soon, I realised, those red flashes were warnings projected by my suit’s security systems.

I spoke into my mic, “I’ll reach your location in a few minutes. I was hit”, and started system diagnostics. The nanotube structure was intact. Main brunt of the hit was taken by the outer layer which caused the titanium scales at the back to malfunction. The cloak was down because the projectors on the scales had shutdown under emergency protocol. The armour was restructuring itself. It was going to take sometime. The diagnostics hadn’t finished calculating the damage.

I turned my head to look at the wall behind. A crater stared back at me. I turned my head in the other direction to look at the mech and there was another boom. I was flung against the wall again, making that crater deeper and larger. Sirens were blaring all around me.

I had to get out of there. I checked for the drone in my back and fortunately it hadn’t been affected yet. I released it into the air to study GOL2A and I ran using the maximum power of my suit towards the rear wall to throw my pursuers off. The rendezvous for our team could not be compromised under any circumstances and escaping from the farthest point in was the best option for now. I heard a loud bang behind me. Another shot had hit the spot where I was standing seconds ago. The mech was powerful but slow. I was moving too fast for it to target precisely. Within a few seconds I approached the walls at the rear. The robot was still chasing me, its each step creating small tremors on the ground. A beep at the rear of my head alerted me of an incoming rocket. I swerved to the left as the rocket zoomed past my right shoulder, hitting the wall in front of me, and exploded into a ball of fire and smoke. I could feel the shockwaves from the explosion as I ran towards the crater created by it. I checked my cloaking system which was now seconds away from realignment. As I reached the wall, I dropped a smoke grenade and fired two missiles from the launchers attached to my shoulders targetting the weakest points of the depression in the wall.

The missiles struck the crater creating a hole in the wall large enough for me to pass through. I ran at full speed towards the opening and with one hard push to the ground I lurched through it, landing on my hands at the other side. The cloak icon blinked green on the display of my hood. I switched it on and huffed into the mic, “Jonas, I’ll be there in two minutes.”

“Sorry Chief, we were getting a little paranoid as to what happened to you.”

“Don’t worry, I am not gonna die on this godforsaken planet.” I had already reached the middle of the wall at the side of the entrance. I heard the wall break and fall down. I switched on my drone’s feed and saw the mech had broken down the part of the wall from where I had come out. It couldn’t gauge my direction obviously because my heat signatures were hidden but it had also become slower than when it had started chasing me. The drone had marked a crack on the dome which as per the previous two minutes’ data was increasing and certain parts of the mech had started malfunctioning causing it to slow down. It meant my attack worked but it would take sometime for the huge machine to go down. I made a mental note of the strategy to follow and ran ahead. The mech on the other hand moved slowly in the opposite direction in its futile pursuit to find me. I instructed the computer to continue observation via my drone till the robot stopped moving. I had reached almost the end of the side wall.

As I turned left, I could see the rest of the team waiting at our rendezvous. I ran as fast as I could. The mech flatlined just before I reached my mates. The acid had eaten it from inside. I switched off my cloak as I entered the area marked under the cloaking drones of the rest. Husky leapt at me and I had to hold him to calm him down.

“People, there is good news and bad news. I believe you know about those huge robots by now. Well, they are strong and heavily armed.”

Jonas asked, “This is the bad news? I guess we can take them down.”

I laughed, “No, this is not the bad news. I tried hitting one. First I used my guns which were useless and then I hit it with one of my missiles armed with AT (aqua tabificus) payload. It took a direct hit, it still stood still and then I took a direct hit. I was flung on the wall. My systems malfunctioned. Then I had to run. It chased me. I had to dodge its missiles for about two minutes till I could reach the perimeter wall and could use my cloak. The mech ‘died’ a few seconds ago.”

I took a breath, let everyone understand what happened and then continued, “That means the good news is that the monsters can be brought down and the bad news is it takes a long damn time to go down.”

Nate spoke in a low voice, “There are forty soldiers more now and twenty of those robots as per the drones’ feed. The assassins could deal with the soldiers and the infantry could take out the mechs using the remote explosives but we can’t strike all of them at the same time not to mention the time those mechs take to die. Then there’s the issue of them being able to kill us that too with ease”

Jonas said, “The machine gunners can create a diversion but they have to be ready to bear the brunt of those angry monsters. The machine gunners should retreat as soon as fifteen of those mechs are hit. As soon as all our targets are hit, we evacuate.”

I thought for a while and replied, “Alright, let’s chalk out a step by step plan and then move out. We got quite a few monsters to kill.”

I, ofcourse took Husky along with me. He could help in taking out the soldiers and then proceed to the interior of the facility for a closer look using his drone. The recon drones showed the robots in a defensive formation behind the inner walls adjacent to the entrance. A group of eight mechs and twenty soldiers stood just after the entrance, prepared to blow anything that crosses the gate to smithereens. Another group was positioned a few metres away to provide support fire.

We formed a plan to minimise the losses. I felt immensely unequipped for the first time in years. What was supposed to be a small covert mission turned out to be a major battle and it had just started. I had no idea what lay inside and we didn’t have any backup.

I should have arranged for backup, I got overconfident. Whole of my team would have to compensate for my mistake. It was eating me but I didn’t have any other option. The closest help was in Dome City and hours away. I talked about it with the rest and nobody was ready to retreat. So, we needed a foolproof strategy that too in a few minutes. We did formulate a strategy, it was more or less functional. At least we are still alive to tell the tale.

Simultaneously, I would have to hit as many mechs as possible. The infantry was going to move in as soon as the assassins were done with the soldiers and attach the remote explosives they were carrying on the heads of the remaining mechs. Easier said than done. They had to jump to a height of fifteen feet to do that. Thankfully, they had actuators that pushed the pneumatics in the legs to do the needful. In the meantime, the machine gunners would position themselves at the entrance and fire at the mechs causing the necessary distraction. Everyone was to evacuate as soon as all the mechs were hit.

We moved fast and positioned ourselves along the outer boundary. I ran ahead with Husky, with the rest of the platoon behind me. I swiftly took position near the inner entrance and signalled the assassins. Their first step was to climb atop the walls. I stayed in cover and waited for the assassins to get in position. The display of my hood showed their markers float up to the top of the wall. The infantry led by Nate stayed behind the perimeter wall and waited for my orders. Stealth was imperative till all the soldiers were neutralized. I jogged in slowly, two grenades in each hand. Eight mechanical brutes stood in a zigzag pattern facing me. The barrels of their guns were spinning slowly, ready to fire. The soldiers knelt alongside, with their guns pointed at the entrance. Of course, they didn’t know about my presence yet which wasn’t about to change soon either.

Husky moved slowly towards the left sticking to the inner perimeter wall keeping his head low. I jogged slowly through the gate, turned left and kept moving towards the enemy platoon. As soon as I was in the range of the first group, I lopped two grenades just in centre of them and leapt sideways. I softly moved towards the next group while the ones near the entrance started firing towards their front. They hadn’t realised what was going on. I jumped towards their back, targeted the closest two robots and fired missiles at them. The second group had started mobilising when they saw the commotion but before they could understand I threw the remaining two grenades at them.

The assassins had jumped down by then and began their assault, with their katanas swiveling about their wrists, going through the soldiers like hot knife through butter. Husky was doing his part by taking out chunks out of them, one at a time. The mechs couldn’t target precisely and shooting in a general direction would only mean friendly fire. The assassins shot whatever they couldn’t find in the range of their katanas. The three musketeers worked in tandem with each other, moving in circles, striking with one hand and shooting with the other. Husky was smart enough to stay out of the gun sights of the soldiers. I hit two more robots while dodging rockets. My stealth was gone obviously and the mechs fired at the one target they could see. I jumped about a lot, trying to save myself from a direct hit. My armour had taken a lot of damage and repairing wasn’t an option. Even one hit could put an end to all our plans.

Only a handful enemy soldiers remained now, firing in every direction they could see but it didn’t help them much. It only must have been about five minutes. The assassins moved fast and with their cloaks, there was no point in even trying to shoot. They ran on the walls when they couldn’t find clear ground, swiftly swinging their katanas. The musketeers had lived up to the reputation created by Dumas.

The blood was everywhere dotted with fallen heads or parts of them. It was oddly satisfying. The first two mechs to get struck had already started malfunctioning, slowing down gradually. I guided two more missiles towards their cracked domes to speed up the process. Suddenly, there was a boom followed by sounds of falling debris. One of the mechs had hit the wall behind me with a rocket and it was collapsing. I braced for impact as the concrete pieces fell on me. My head was knocked against the ground as a chunk hit it followed by another that fell on my back. I fell down to the ground but the damage wasn’t much. The suit was really strong, it absorbed most of the shock but I did feel some of the brunt. My shoulder singed but I ignored it and got up, pushing myself away from the ground. Small pieces of concrete fell from my head and rolled down my neck. I jerked my hands and walked over the jagged pieces of the broken wall. The clone soldiers had been dealt with.

I spoke into my comm, “Nate, it’s your turn.” The assassins were running towards the rear, a few mechs firing in their direction, few others firing in other directions and the rest running about arbitrarily among which three were slowing down. Four mechs lied like lumps, smoke rising from their burnt insides. I targeted two robots firing at the assassins, to draw attention towards me.

Just then infantry moved in, followed by the machine gunners. The gunners took position twenty metres inside the perimeter and started firing at the robots. It was all so fast. Then, I saw Nate do something incredible. He caught the arm of a mech in front of him and pulled himself up on its neck. I saw the cameras inside the dome of the bot rearranging themselves to pinpoint Nate’s location. By the time the robot could target, Nate had stuck the explosive on the dome and jumped down, detonating the bomb just before landing. The others climbed up either by grabbing the robots’s neck or by taking support of the mechs’ shoulders. One of them managed to trip a mech over and kept on firing his rifles at the dome till it cracked. Then he took out the cameras and put the explosive inside and fired it. I hit the remaining, two at a time. It was time to disappear and we had to stay hidden till the monster robots fell.

Husky had infiltrated the main building and was silently gathering data. The assassins were back at our base. I decided to stay inside the perimeter to provide backup to Husky if needed. I ordered the rest of my unit to return back to the base.

I had to wait for Husky’s data and then analyse it.

To be continued…

Infiltration, in the future

The walls seemed higher as we moved ahead. I could feel my heart beating faster. I believe it was nervousness. We stopped about a hundred metres from the compound. The cloaking drones hovered above our heads, constantly maintaining an invisible shroud over us.

Jonas and Nate separated out and faced the rest. I hadn’t expected a speech from those cheeky fellows. Apparently, I was wrong. Jonas started speaking with Nate at his side, “Fellows, we are at the doors of our Rite of Passage. We may not have been born a long time ago but we were trained hard enough and we were trained for this day. We have stayed together as a team and we will win together as a team. We will fight as hard as possible. Today is not the day we die.”

The last sentence struck me. How the hell did he come up with that? “Today is not the day we die” was something I would tell myself everytime I embarked on an adventure. It always fired me up with a certain confidence. I’d have to ask Phil about it later.

I heard Nate shout out loud, “Boys!!! Are you ready to rain some fire?”

The others shouted in unison, “Hell, yeah!!!”

I felt the ground beneath me tremble. Thankfully, the cloak also absorbed any kind of sound produced inside its boundary. Jonas came up to me and said, “We are gonna move out chief. Any last words for us?”

“Last words are reserved for the last act of life, yours is just going to start. Just tell me something, where did you get the part about today is not the day we die?”

Jonas was little confused, “I don’t know, it’s something I just felt and said at that time. Maybe something to do with my programming. You should ask the guys who wrote the algorithms.”

I said with my right eyebrow raised, “is that so? Alright, I’ll ask when I return. Go now, take care of those sentries and all of you, get back in one piece. We have a long night ahead.”

“That’s a deal. Beers are on me when we get back to our city.”

I smiled, “I drink scotch.”

Jonas called on to the three musketeers.

Aramis came to me and spoke, “Can’t wait to see you in action. We will return soon.”

A grin appeared on my face though he couldn’t see it through my armoured head. I said, “Let’s see. Right now it’s your turn to show what you got.”

Aramis nodded and jogged back to his squad and they strode off to the compound. It was 11 o’clock. I requested Phil to transmit the video feed of the drones to my suit. Of course the drones couldn’t see the movements of the assassins physically but their transmitters provided us with the precise locations which were marked in the video feed.

Within seconds they reached the perimeter wall. The ascent along the minarets seemed peaceful since there were no alarms raised. Two drones now aligned themselves along the top level of both minarets, I saw two flashes and then saw the guards fall down. One marker remained motionless which I guessed belonged to the guy deactivating the sentry. After dropping the guard, the first guy stayed on the lookout, observing patterns of enemy movement I supposed. After two minutes, I saw both pairs of markers float down. There were thirty eight more to go. The Phantoms were signalled for take off. About an hour later, I heard Jonas’s voice crackle on the radio, “All done chief. We are on our way back.” I heaved a sigh of relief.

The Phantoms were about thirty minutes away. The Assassins were to meet us on either sides of the gate. As soon as we got the confirmation from Jonas, I ordered everyone to get ready. We were gonna move out towards the compound, in fifteen minutes. It was five minutes past midnight then.

At twenty minutes past midnight, we started. Nate lead the team, I stayed at the back, observing the compound. Thermal images showed no change in enemy routine. This meant our strategy till now has been successful. The ETA of the Phantoms was two minutes. We reached the entrance in sixty seconds and immediately Nate and his team got busy in attaching the tabificus explosives. I saw Jonas approach slowly behind Nate when he was connecting the leads of the detonator to the explosive device. I wanted to see what was Jonas trying to do. I saw his marker move in my feed when suddenly Nate fell over and his face hit the ground followed by Jonas’s weird laughter. Nate got up and muttered, “Asshole!” Jonas commanded his team mates to go to the other side and get ready to storm. “See you on the other side Nate!” He said as he jogged off to the other side. At that very moment Phil conveyed that the Phantoms were here. As I turned my head I saw some shifting of the clouds and two loud explosions rocked the compound.

It was our cue, Nate fired the charges. We waited till the acid ate away the door, creating an irregular opening. Six more explosions were heard at some distance. The Phantoms had finished their job. Now the outcome was entirely upto us. As we stormed inside the compound, all we could see at first was smoke and hear alarms blaring. The drones detected major movement of troops all around the compound. Defensive protocols were in place. We didn’t wait for the smoke to subside. Jonas’s team Jumbo went to the left and Nate led team Mumbo to the right of the compound. The formation for attack was simple. The machine gunner was to form a perimeter by raining bullets. The infantrymen were to be on the gunner’s either side, making precision shots using the sniper attachments on their rifles. The assassins’ job was to take care of anyone who got past the barrier of bullets.

I moved ahead, trying to assess the situation further. I chose stealth for the current job. The titanium scales on my armour were enabled to produce a cloak via micro projectors on their surface. I stuck to the inner side of the perimeter wall which gave me a wider field of vision while minimising encounters with enemy troops. Well, I managed to reach the end of the wall without attracting much attention. But I didn’t like what I saw at all.

Two flashing red lights had caught my attention as soon as I started moving along the adjacent side of the compound. I stopped to observe carefully. I heard a loud hiss and the soldiers posted beneath the flashing lights started jogging in a file toward opposite directions. With another loud but longer hissing sound, I saw white smoke emanating from the wall of the facility facing towards me, followed by series of metallic clanging. What seemed like walls were actually armoured doors about thirty feet high which had just started rolling in opposite directions, the wheels clanging against the rails. My tongue dried, heartbeat increased. Four files of heavily armed soldiers marched out, ten soldiers in each file. No, that didn’t worry me. The reasons for worry were led by the soldiers, twenty biped robots, walking slowly out of the gates, each of them about fifteen feet high.

I was out of my wits. Our assumption, rather my assumption that Sergei had exhausted his armaments while laying siege to our city was absolutely wrong. Not only that, it seemed that we had walked straight into an ambush.

To be continued…

The Attack on The Citadel

24th July 2355, 9 PM

We are almost there. Atmost another hour. It’s absolutely dark outside, the only lights are from our vehicles. I don’t remember the last time I saw stars twinkling in the sky. I wonder sometimes, whatever I am doing, is it really worth it? We, I mean me and the people who I work with, have indeed come a long way but at the cost of what? All I could see the whole day were dried up rivers and oceans, broken remains of buildings, fallen bridges which boasted of the engineering capabilities of humans. It’s ironic how humans themselves were responsible for the destruction of their proud creations. Fortunately we didn’t encounter any storm till now. Even a small one was powerful enough to topple us. We need to clear up the atmosphere soon if we want our civilization to progress.

I had expected the presence of some new species. Maybe because of the constant sub-zero temperatures nothing could thrive. There’s also a probability that there might be existence of organisms below the surface like the Scaloids(refer to Episode 16) but to ensure that we need to explore properly and now is not the time. The soldiers are chattering among themselves. The vehicles are slowing down. We have reached our mark, our camp which is surrounded by a bunch of worn down skyscrapers, keeping us hidden from the eyes of the enemies. The facility is about three hundred metres away from our location.

I hadn’t finished documenting the description of the facility. As far as Sergei had confessed, the levels of the facility above the ground were dedicated to researching brain control, AI, weaponry and other war machines. The levels below the ground served as living quarters for the clones involved in research work and other responsibilities.

10 PM

We have reached our destination. It’s an eerie feeling. Last time I was involved in something similar was more than two centuries ago. Still all of it seems to have happened just yesterday. I could feel my heartbeat increase thinking about it. The moon was hidden even on that night, the sky murky. Me and my team were to infiltrate a heavily guarded nuclear silo. Our actions were going to change the whole world and they did, not entirely to my calculations but the end result was almost the same. I was supposed to die that day but I didn’t. I had sincerely hoped for death as I am doing now but fate had more torture in store for me. Most unfortunate I’d say though I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have any reason or wish to live but I couldn’t die. Let’s see if I get to die today. These people can take care of themselves after this facility is destroyed. No, I can’t die. I have Husky to take care of. I can die after he dies. Time to move out.

25th July 2355, 5AM

Still living, not without a few scratches though. Didn’t get those in a long time. The singeing feels nice somehow. Right now, I am waiting to regroup with the others near the entrance of the facility. Last night was long and bloody.

At about 10 o’clock last night, four stealth drones were sent to the citadel for reconnaissance. Our information checked out. It was best to take out the mortar teams first. That meant we had to go in as soon as the first mortar team was struck. Two of them were just behind the first entrance of the compound on either side. The assassins were divided into two groups and their job was to take out the sentry guns and the guards posted on the minarets starting with the ones at the entrance.

After taking out the first two guns, they were to move out in opposite directions along the outer wall and take the rest of the sentries out. Of course, disconnecting the sentries from the main command was not an option. No one inside the compound could be allowed to witness anything which could raise even a single eyebrow before the Phantoms struck the compound. So, the only way was to take out the guard first and then disable the firing and receptor mechanisms keeping everything else intact. However, a feedback loop needed to be placed which would relay the information that all the mechanisms were functioning normally. The assassins had a built-in hacking module in the abdominal region which could be connected to machines through an extensible wire.

Pressure sensors on the walls were a norm since much before the War, along with laser grids on the parapets. The laser grids were not a problem, the pressure sensors were. The Assassins were supposed to move along the outer walls towards successive minarets to avoid detection. Cloaking wasn’t going to be a problem. Each armed unit had its own cloaking drone which created a holographic image of the surroundings around the unit. It gave the least distortion possible and small black bodies on the drones rejected any form of thermal imaging. Climbing the minarets was the prime issue. Using jet pods would give away heat signatures. Airdrop was out of the question and even though the assassins moved on a cushion of air beneath their feet, the extra force of air during the climb could trigger the sensors.

The last trick in our books was to use electric turbines. The R&D department had introduced a feature in all the soldiers which facilitated the attachment of certain mechanisms externally. These apparatuses were to aid the soldiers in overcoming specific situations. The electric turbines could be fitted on the backs of our units as an add on. They were not very powerful and hence couldn’t exactly provide enough force to fly on command but they could provide enough power for the units to hover or slowly glide up. The air cushions on the feet and their hands would help maintain their position when they moved up along the walls. The fins built in their suits could help them glide on their way down.

As soon as the assassins were done with their job, the infantry units were to move in and deploy the explosives on the first entrance. The explosives would be timed to go off as soon as the first mortar team was taken out and we would go in.

Jonas and Nate decided to form two teams Jumbo and Mumbo, after the entry, each comprising of one machine gunner, three infantry units and two assassins. They would move again in opposite directions, taking out one platoon at a time. Stealth drones were to be kept hovering above the compound to keep an eye out for other enemy movement.

We moved out at 10:30PM. The broken down buildings loomed over us, silent, watching. Darkness spread out like an endless shroud above us, sudden gusts of wind trying to sway us from our path. The Assassins were leading the pack with me and Husky at the end. Phil had stayed back to monitor our movements and the drone video feed and relay relevant information back to us. I had enough time to upgrade mine and Husky’s suit before leaving the city. “Upgrade” isn’t the appropriate word here. The suit was converted into a small walking tank.

I had kept the inner lining since I was comfortable in it. I had attached a flexible blackbody mesh over it which absorbed any incoming or outgoing radiation. This modified suit could be worn separately or inside an armoured exoskeleton I had designed especially for these situations. The outer layer comprised of small plates made from Titanium Aluminium alloy. These plates were arranged like scales on a fish and could slide over one another allowing extensive maneuvers and certain other functions. The limbs were motorized with the joints augmented with hydraulic systems. These mechanisms amplified the wearer’s strength by a factor of ten under normal conditions and could be boosted by twenty five times for short durations. Though the boosters were needed to be recharged externally before they could be used again. The layer just below the exoskeleton consisted of a mesh of carbon nanotubes. These tubes could slide within each other to provide openings wherever required. The next layer comprised of all the weapons I had installed inside the armour. One reaper assault rifle and a smaller gun were fitted on both arms which could spring up and shoot when needed. Two sets of miniature missile systems with a payload consisting of aqua tabificus, that insanely strong acid we discovered, were installed on the shoulders. On one side of the back was housed a gattling cannon which used Piercer rounds and on the other side was a drone which could be used for reconnaissance. The mid back housed a powerful turbine which facilitated jumping to a height of thirty metres.

The head of the exoskeleton housed an onboard computer which controlled all the mechanisms of course with a manual override. It could also store a data of over ten petabytes and feed the information visually or through audio. The eyes of the armoured suit had targetting systems along with thermal imaging and a certain level of X-ray vision. Husky’s suit had similar upgrades but with only the gattling cannon as the firing weapon. Husky could operate the mechanised jaws built in his suit though the rest of the systems were AI controlled with the override in my command. I did what I could as preparation for battle but I had never faced such a conflict before. Fighting the Scaloids was different. They were primitive and lot less in number. Our current adversaries were humans and we weren’t sure about their numbers but we knew it would be more than hundred not to mention the mechanical units at their disposal. If we lost this battle, the enemy would attack the city and without proper leadership the city could fall. Failure was not an option.

To be continued…