Republic of Netara
Plains of Tersus Border Area
"This is a clusterfuck," Kaelan shouted, throwing his half-molten rifle away to pull his sidearm.
"You don't say?!" Tomoe shouted back, trying to keep her body behind the rock. Another crimson beam struck the cover, sending half-molten shards over her head.
"Central, we need fire support. A single robotic unit survived; we don't have the gear to take it out," she said, raising her voice over the enemy fire.
"Artillery is spent. Directing the nearest air unit to you, ETA, thirty seconds. You are too close to the target area; retreat to the minimum safe distance immediately."
"We can't. This thing doesn't miss. We move out of cover, and we are dead."
A pause.
"Then take cover and pray."
She threw her last hand grenade for distraction, to keep the robot from advancing any closer. It would only scratch the dark metallic plates, but she had no other choice.
Kaelan followed her lead.
She stuck close to the boulder, making herself as small as possible, and covered her ears. The whistle of the bomb from above drowned out the sound of the robot's weapon. The explosion sent tremors through the ground.
Even from fifteen meters, her ears rang, and the pressure from the blast found its way to her. Waiting for the dust to settle, she tried to regulate her breathing due to the pain on her ribs.
"Spearhead-1, report," the operator called out. She shook her head, trying to dispel the ringing.
"We are bruised but alive, central," Kaelan said, coughing. "The remaining enemy is neutralized, rupture closed, requesting evac."
"Gunship is on the way; ETA five minutes."
She pressed her earpiece. "Spearhead-2, how are things on your end?" The tank they destroyed had the last unit inside, waiting for the opportune moment. There was no reason why the rest of the squad wouldn't face the same situation.
"Spearhead-2, respond," she called again, her fingers closing into a fist.
"Shit, you don't think?" Kaelan left the sentence unfinished.
"Damn it, Silene, say something." Her voice rose unintentionally, yet all that greeted her was silence once more.
"We are fine, Tomoe; just had a comms issue," her coequal said. Her shoulders dropped, and she released the breath she didn't know she was holding.
"Are the others with you?" Sending the rest of the squad to assist Silene had almost cost them dearly. She hoped they had arrived alive.
"They are," she replied, the static in her voice finally gone. "You won't believe this, but we just got saved by a man in high-tech armor carrying an energy weapon." Her tone was too excited for their situation.
"Did you hit your head, Silene?" she asked, brows furrowed.
"No. He just appeared out of nowhere, blasted the robots to pieces, and disappeared."
"This is Bulwark-1; she is right. We saw him too. Had a directed energy weapon, something like a rocket launcher. It carved the hostile tank in half."
"Does anyone have a visual?" Kaelan asked, removing his helmet to let his hair breathe. At Tomoe's flat look, his eyes softened, his lips trembling.
When she didn't budge, he put his helmet back on with a pout. She did not like how tight the helmets were either, but it was the only defense his head had.
"Negative. I don't know how he moves so fast," Bulwark-3 reported.
Her right eye twitched. "You've gotta be kidding me."
High-tech armor, energy weapons, moving fast enough to cover kilometers in unbelievably short times? That brought a person to her mind.
"This is First Lieutenant M'Base. All ruptures closed. Start evacs ASAP. Do we have any casualties?" The low, even voice of the field commander came.
She sighed. Now they could retreat and let the main force handle everything else. Which meant they had survived another day.
Though not everyone had.
"This is Bulwark-2; we lost Sergeant Mete. The enemy tank unit would have destroyed the artillery without him."
Tomoe closed her eyes. Without the artillery, their position would have been overrun by now.
Losses were inevitable, but it did not make it any easier.
—
RIC Central Base
"What is this I am hearing about an unknown in white armor and advanced weaponry?" Margon asked, eyes gliding over the reports at speeds that would leave lesser men in awe.
"Bulwark-1, Spearhead-2, and several other units saw an unknown friendly carrying advanced gear. He assisted in neutralizing the enemy and disappeared afterwards," Aldrin reported. He played the edited recording on the projector, displaying several parts from the helmet cams pieced together.
Margon narrowed his eyes, stroking his mustache. White energy beams struck the robots, doing damage only comparable to the artillery units supporting the QRF. Yet, he could not see the source of the fire.
"Either all the helm cams malfunctioned, or the unknown did something. While we have a recording of the moments the enemy was destroyed, he does not appear on any part of the footage."
The upper corner of his upper lip twitched for a moment. "Wonderful. An unknown with energy weapons, and we have no visual of him. The Committee will absolutely love this."
"Sir, we have bigger problems than politics. This was the third time these synthetics came through a rupture. "First time is a fluke," he said, displaying the first lone bipedal robot to arrive, along with the second wave of a dozen air units. "Second time is an issue, third time is…"
"The enemy action," Mardon finished. A rupture opening to the same dimension twice was exceedingly rare, with a probability so low it had only happened three times in five centuries, among countless ruptures.
The probability of a third time was so low, he'd sooner grow wings.
"Whatever is on the other side, it is sending recon units, probing our defenses." Mardon glanced at his aide. He could not refute the truth, no matter how much he wanted to.
"Sir, this has never happened before. The enemy's superiority in technology is quite clear. If they return in greater numbers, we might have a problem."
Mardon chuckled, dry and short. Thirty artillery shells to take out a single enemy tank meant more than just a problem.
He pushed his chair back. "I need to inform the committee now and prepare an action plan. How are the troops?"
"Sergeant Mete fell in line of duty while stopping the enemy armored unit from destroying the field artillery. Other than that, only bruises," Aldrin said, gently laying his fist over his heart.
Mardon repeated the gesture. "May his soul find peace in the Heart."
—
"Hey there, savior in white armor," she said, wincing as her ribs throbbed. She would have to return to the infirmary soon.
"Hey," he greeted, working on a robot, the exact blocky ones they had only been able to repel with artillery.
"Are you playing the vigilante savior now?"
"No. The situation is more complex than you guys think."
"We think there is an impending invasion."
"No," he shook his head; "it already started. The second time the machines came, they infiltrated the global network and started to gather information. This was just a simple test to verify the accuracy of the data."
Tomoe closed her eyes, tilting her head back. "Damn it."
"Please tell me you have a plan. If those tin cans come in force, we are done for." Had they actually bothered to assault before artillery was settled, she knew there would be more deaths.
The walking garbage cans were most likely aware of everything, tracking their operational movements. The opsec was out the window now.
"The AI they left behind has a trove of information I am extracting right now."
With each word of what he had found, her eyes widened more. A world full of red-skinned aliens, eradicated by the very machines they created. Now, that machine had discovered a way to force open ruptures and wanted to condemn humanity to the same fate.
"And your plan is?"
"I have been working on a singularity reactor for infinite energy. I tweaked the design a bit, and now I have a planet destroyer WMD. We just need to deliver it to the other side and detonate it."
Well, that was more of a plan than anything the RIC could hope to bring forth. "If that AI opens a rupture, it will be heavily guarded."
"Which is why I am going to do the same. I already have the quantum wavelength of the universe the machines come from. When it concentrates its forces for an assault, I will open a new rupture behind the enemy lines."
She sucked in a breath, which caused her ribs to throb once more. "You can open ruptures?" That was big. Half the reason her mother had kept the arrival point a secret was so it would not be weaponized.
"It's simple, really. Just have to dump enough energy into a micro rupture. The quantum wavelength will make sure it is the one I want rather than a random one."
"How did you even find this AI?"
He sighed, dropping the tools on his hands. "It started three days ago…"
—
"Boss, there is a problem. Something is lurking on the net; it just brushed at the edge of my firewall," Nax said, his holographic image, a twin of his old appearance, popping next to him.
He raised his head from the prototype of the energy shielding harness, brows creased. "How did it even retreat?"
"It is advanced, not as much as me, but still pretty advanced. It managed to flee by the time I detected it."
His lips pressed thin, nose scrunching. "I want it found now." There wasn't a single system on this Haven as advanced as Nax.
"Already on its trail. But the architecture is foreign. It's not from around here."
"An AI from a rupture? For fuck's sake," he slammed his hand on the table. "Find if anyone has been meddling with rupture tech."
"I do that all the time actually. I would know if there was."
"Infiltration then."
"Got it," Nax said, pumping his holographic arm. "It reached the supercomputer at the University of Zitron and severed the outside connection. Since it is night there, how about a little infiltration of our own?"
Thairon took a deep breath, massaging his scalp.
—
Republic of Netara
Being in the capital of the republic reminded him why he hated this place. The self-proclaimed democratic nation, which in truth was an elected dynasty, always managed to get on his nerves with their out-of-control capitalism.
He cursed Noah while opening the gates of the main research wing.
The cameras were already on a loop, and his light distortion field made infiltration child's play. He snorted at the banners welcoming the students to the university. At least Arlex Royal Academy had the grace to name it after a person of importance, rather than just the capital city.
The dark corridors reminded him of his days at the academy, filled with great minds ignored by the upper management and fools riding on the glory of their noble house.
The layout was identical to Arlex's, the same long halls with one large classroom in each section. At least Noah knew what he was doing when it came to the design of the educational centers.
He approached the first security measure, a simple electronic door lock. He laid his fingers over the casing. Bioelectricity flowed out, immediately connecting him to the standalone system.
The thick doors slid open to the sides, and the ID scanner faced the same treatment.
The invasive AI must have assumed it would be able to leave once the researchers restored the connection. He stood before the massive device and rolled his eyes again. All those claims of being the prominent center of R&D on the planet, and this was the best they could do.
He slid the portable AI matrix into the socket. The adaptive connector head twitched like a hive of angry moles, reconfiguring its shape to fit into the specialized socket.
Nax broke through the firewalls and quickly forced the invasive AI into the matrix.
"Extraction ready; two guards are heading this way for a routine checkup."
He nodded to himself. The guards opened the door while he was halfway there, checking the area with flashlights. He simply walked past them.
—
"The AI had knowledge of history to prevent any deviance. Based on it, the AI, Helix, wants to destroy us for simply being organic lifeforms."
"A genocidal AI with planet-spanning capabilities?" she asked, snorting, though her downcast eyes told another story. "If this plan of yours doesn't work, we are all dead."
"Keep yourself together," his stern voice snapped her out of. "It will work."
She looked at his eyes, trying to find the same strength in herself. Clearing her head with simple breathing exercises, she analyzed the situation, going through the highlights.
"I need a plausible reason to tell this to the general. We need to be ready for an all-out assault while you handle your part."
Thairon rested his thumb against his chin, his index finger grazing his lips. "I believe our best bet is an anonymous tip. He will most likely understand it is from the mystery savior, and Mardon is intelligent enough to realize something is amiss with the synthetics."
"Alright."
"Thank you for everything. I won't be able to get the weekend off this week, but I should be able to see you next week."
"I'll see you then; stay strong."
"See you," she said, leaving the supply closet to return to the infirmary. The nurse was going to be very cross with her.
—
Mardon held the cold bottle to his head, searching through his drawer for a pill. He pulled the pill pack out, only to scowl and throw it to the trash.
He would have to do with some ice.
The computer before him opened by itself. He had not even touched the keyboard yet. It got weirder when his password was entered and he looked at the desktop, blinking.
Had he just gotten hacked?
Reaching down to pull the plug, he stopped. A video, one that he most certainly did not have on his computer, began to play. He squinted his eyes, lowering the bottle to the side.
Red-skinned, insectoid aliens of all ages and sizes were being slaughtered. WMDs, executions, gasses, bombing, even incineration while alive. Each horrifying act was committed by the same black robots that had come out of ruptures three times.
He laid his elbow on the desk, rubbing his face.
"What the hell do you want?"
"Cooperation," it said on the screen.
"Then come talk to me face to face."
"Not possible. There is an AI on the other side who just discovered a planet full of organic lifeforms through the rupture. It wants to kill us all, but I have a plan. I am devising an early rupture detection system. You need to hold the enemy off while I handle my part and destroy the other side."
He stood still for a second, processing the information that had just been dumped on him. "You do realize how suspicious this is, right? Unless you can give me an assurance, I won't say anything you believe."
"I will contact you later, general. You will have your assurance."
The computer shut down, and once he turned it back on, there was no evidence he had been hacked.
Stretching the collar of his uniform, he started on the reports, mind occupied by what he had just learned.
And more importantly, whether this person could be trusted.