(Instructor): - C’mmon monkeys! Test training time! The last one behind will clean the gardens for the whole month! (Gardens… aka the barrack bathrooms)
Everyone jump out of the bed to run to the Hangar bay, no matter if they wear the pilot outfit or if were naked. In the Hangar, our beloved training mechas: shiny Red Ant Class, the most basic and lighter of the Battle Mech are awaiting us, as every day.
And as every day, we have to listen to the words of our smart ass Instructor and follow his orders as if he was both, Mother and Father at once, and as if there wasn’t a tomorrow.
“There is no other God than my instructor, no other law than his voice and no other love than my Mech!” Is our common battle motto.
(Instructor): - Come on crying rabbits. Your mommies are looking how you pee on your pants!
After the collection of the ten favorite quotes of our Instructor. I manage to be among the first pilots seating in their cockpits and becoming establishing control with their mechs.
We have been preparing to become Squad officers for so long and I dare say we are ready to do it, but our Instructor thinks too much is never enough, and keep smashing our minds and bodies every hour, every day, every week during these hard two years…
At least a dozen of younger pilots gave up, leaving surround by the intensive training. Too much pain for them:
“Only those with a weak spirit give up before fight the thousand battles that led the First Division Clans to the Glory”
I rolled my eyes to the sky while I connected the plug in my synaptic rig… “When will the Chief change a single letter of any of his quotes?” I remember I thought… Those he uses are like a Bible for us and I was then afraid I would be never allowed to remove them from my mind, no matter how much time passed away.
But the synaptic harmonization gets done… My Mech become nothing else but an extension of my own senses and capabilities, allowed to turn my slightest movements into destructive maneuvers… Every time I follow those steps I feel as a God of War for the whole time I am piloting my mech (despite be controlling just a Red Ant)… or a Demigod, as our God is the Instructor.
So here we are:
We chill by the intercom channel: Hooray Monkeys of Görtz! Hail Death bringers!
And we jump outside to the ground.
I noticed something odd in the Red Ant assigned to me, that I call Hades. So I asked to the AI talking interface.
(Hades’ AI): - Bzzz… Good morning Cadet First Class Jaramillo.
- Morning Hades, please, could you make a routine scan of your systems and tell me if something is wrong?
(Hades’ AI): - Bzz… Scan on process.
I nod in silence, as I feel always odd after talk with the AI… I always found annoy to talk with any artificial intelligence, makes me feel a bit ridiculous, as talking with an imaginary friend.. You know..
Not far away from our Head Quarter and Instruction Camp, there is a gateway… One of those ancient Forerunners devices, spread all along the known galaxy and far away.
Something new: the Sergeant is leading us to the gateway, the same that we always avoided following his strict orders.
The first one who disobeyed him, got his hands shattered after the exhaustive and systematic punishment received from the own Chief Instructor, the dude couldn’t maneuver rightly the Mech actuators after that, even while his physics got totally healed… a psychosomatic harass said the medic bot… Rejected from Service with Dishonor)
After that, nobody dared to disobey the smallest of our Instructor orders.
So as our mechs were previously reprogrammed with the Niode beacon signal of a certain gateway destination, the entire Squad was allowed to cross together into an immediate travel across a painful distance. Our destination? No clue… We arrived into a devastated insertion point with signals of past combats…
(Instructor): - M ’okay monkeys, we are going to perform a hard test on your abilities as pilots. The Commandant believes you are ready for an endurance test… I believe he is quite wrong placing his confidence on you, girls, but here we go!
“A test… so we were approaching to our graduation, at last!” I became excited.
(Hades AI): - Test completed and reporting: Synaptic connection 99.998% Not detected unharmonization; Artificial Intelligence algorithmic, analytic and logic systems 100% functional; Bioptical systems 100% functional; Energy Reactor 100% functional; Mechanical systems 100% functional; Battle systems 100 % functional; New weapon systems detected and loaded, 100% functional…
“New weapons”? Ah yes, the Chieff mentioned it, probably we were carrying some real battle laser for the test…
(Hades AI): -… Structural Integrity 100% functional; Cockpit Systems 100% functional; Pilot Vitals 76% functional… Pilot First Class Jaramillo; You have an excessive alcoholic tax in your blood, Cholesterol at dangerous limit…
- All right Hades, enough, end your report.
(Hades AI): - As you wish, Pilot First Cla… I turned off the talking mode of Hades for the next ten minutes as I really hate when Hades place me in evidence when I take some Alpha-Centauri Beer and my favorite Frankfurt in my breakfast…
(Instructor): - Monkeys! Today you have equipped real lasers in your training Red Ants as some other devices you don’t need to care controlling. So keep not burning the ass of any of your fellows, dudettes! Roger?
Roger!!! All we answered at once by the intercom. (“So that’s why I felt something different”, I though… I should take more attention to my mech… Now I was curious about the kind of lasers we had equipped and was close to turn back the AI talking mode to ask for a technical weaponry report).
(Instructor): - M ‘okay, switch your IC Channel to 2388.92 Frequency Delta-Zulu… We don’t want dark ears listening today.
I frowned, as that channel was one of the many restricted to use in War Action, but of course, followed orders as the other thirty cadets.
(Instructor): - Eagle formation, 200 meters of interval, Corporals, take control on your battle lines and go to tactical channel to receive more instructions.
This was absolutely new… The gateway, real ammo… War Channel… High Security… Dammit, could it be possible that we were entering in real action! The thought made my body generate a good infusion of adrenaline.
(Instructor): - Copy this: We are entering into a Tenth Tonnage Formation, so follow the trained sequence and keep a low profile for all your girls at each file.
(All pilots): - Copied Sir!
(Instructor): - Activate shields, lasers and countermeasures… Fire in Ten…Nine… Eight…
“Wait! What? We went going to just start fight in seconds! I couldn’t believe it, and I had no time even to become afraid for my own safety or anything else… The excitation was so much…was everything, and I tried to control my breath and focus on the pure orders” Mechanically I transmitted by the line channel to my partners of file the given orders, adding a few of my own to remind everyone the trained pattern for a Tenth Tons array. I could hear some exclamation of surprise as they understood as well what was going on.
(Instructor): - Seven…
I spotted in the horizon the front line of the enemy, small in the far distance yet, but getting closer as both: the enemy and us kept moving forward.
Six… The enemy was keeping a similar formation, with Red Ants but with something odd that I couldn’t identify with the distance, so I activated the telemetric visors and brought a zoom on their front line…
Five… Crap, they had Red Ants modified… Their weaponry was not simple at all… Those huge laser weapons they handled…
Four… I sent a scan of the enemy weaponry with a fast neural order to the aboard AI.
Three… The voice of the Chief experienced a slight tremble of emotion, as I believed he was long time away of real combat, one of the many reasons why he hated us.
Two… Oh my God… it’s real… we are going to…
(Instructor): - Get ready monkeys, we are going to kick their arses! One! Open FIRE!!! The final order, the order we were awaiting all the years we stood in the AWAC (Advanced War Academy)… Finally!
Six anxious pilots freed the Firelock button and pressed it at once, and a first salve of lasers was shot on the enemy files at the same time as they opened fire on us. The laser my fellows were using… Oh my God, what the hell were they using? The scarlet blasts… As the enemy, their lasers fell as a real hell among my fellows!
(Hades AI): Bzzz… Reporting Enemy Weaponry Scan: The target hostile unit is carrying four Heavy Tactical Lasers Class Galaxy Eye and four Heavy Battle Lasers Class Duboce. Advantage of the enemy weapons over our instruction weaponry systems: 260 %... Recalculating advantage with our new weapon systems…
F*** it! The enemy weaponry was really superior… So we could only rely on speed to expect survive the imminent carnage! The first strike was unlucky for our side, as our entire front line reacted slowly enough as to allow the enemy to take them down. And as expected, each hit of the enemy shot down each one of our brothers…
My line was next…
(Hades AI): Bzzz… Deploying Micro Block defenses…
What? I got surprised by the AI announcement… From since I had equipped the Cocwerk Micro Block system? Oh crap, who cares? That mean I may keep a high enough speed… and speed was my only hope as we needed to shot down the enemy before their devastating lasers could caught us.
(Hades AI): Bzzz… Load of the beam capacitors for the Black Widows completed. Recalculating weaponry advantage… Advantage of our tactical weapons over the enemy weaponry systems: 174 %
Suddenly, my mouth was quite opened by the surprise… What the…?
(Hades AI): Bzzz… Acquiring targets… At same time, the Chief’s voice could be heard by the closed channel of the intercom: Line leaders, don’t fall asleep as the monkeys on the front line… Get ready!
I just recovered control and with flash reflex, maneuvered to avoid the shot of the mech I was now facing, while the Hades made the aiming calculations.
Bzzzzz… target Acquired… were the laconic words of Hades.
FIRE! With a roar, the lasers released their lethal charge in four red blasts flying with lightning speed towards our enemy.
A rain of scarlet perfect shots that got no contest from their damaged front line.
In their side, another six Ants advanced forward, flanking their fallen companions lying in the ground as smoking scratched remnants.
FIRE! (Before their second line had time to react, our demonic Black Widows released a second shot). Above the fallen, the second file dropped with their cockpits pierced and their pilots vaporized or barely wounded.
FIRE!!! (This time, the third line had almost no time to deploy, and just kissed the ground in a surreal silence where all was dyed in a flashy scarlet light.
FIRE!!! FIRE!!! FIRE!!!!
War has no space for piety when one fights for his life to best the enemy mech he has in front… But this was carnage as I could never realize in our simulated battles.
And all was done. I realized my cardiac pulse going faster even than our trampling Red Ants, charging against the remains of their army to abort any try of counterattack.
(Instructor): - Sixth and Seventh lines, scout the area and report!
The voice of the Sergeant was exultant, the bastard was really on his sausage!
Then I noticed what may be a critical impact in the cabinet, just above my helmet… By a moment I felt afraid I could have received any serious damage, but then, I found myself with no wounds… And for my surprise, the Mech was getting back the integrity of its structure, as the Nanobots of the fresh and new installed defensive systems were doing their work.
I explored carefully the battlefield… Some of us, were attending our fallen companions, but those remnant not attended yet, were quite away of any medical care as soon our AIs reported and we confirmed by visual check.
We captured eleven enemy Ants, possibility usable after the proper reparations, and took prisoners to six enemy pilots… The whole remnant warriors were half disintegrated corpses, some of them even entirely vaporized by our ionic blasts. I may confirm the name Black Widow was very appropriated for our new weapons…
My thoughts went with my fallen fellows… From the six of those who felt down from our front line, only two survived… but Yuri, Williams, Mendoza and Brian where not anymore with us…
“Permission to open private channel, Chief Master Sergeant”
(Instructor, by private channel): Spit it, warrior.
- Why we came here without knowledge of what we could face? Four of us are dead now! I believe they may like to know where we were coming to”
The voice of the Instructor came cold as a Boreas shot through the intercom: You have been trained along two years of hard work for this, to kill or be killed… What do you expected, Pilot? Maybe a party with dancing girls, drinks and snarvum pizza?.
I could only listen and agree ashamed.
Dunno why came then into my mind the words of an ancient poet that I heard somewhere…
“Only the dead pilots can witness the end of our endless War.”
(Instructor, back to the general Intercom channel):
- M ’okay, I am not any longer before monkeys, but Knights… You may want to know you successfully defeated a specialist Squad during a Clan War battle… So welcome to the Elite Fighters of the galaxy. I am proud to officially announce your graduation with honors, Sires.
Intercom Channel was quiet, as all we got stunned by the news.
(Instructor): - So never forget your fallen fellows and fight always with bravery and skill so they may witness you proud from the hell!
Nec spec, nec metu! (Without hope or fear)
(Intercom channel): Nec spec, nec metu! Repeated every of us, celebrating our victory.
I let my eyes look for long the Crimson storm released over that battlefield… A scarlet light was blinking in my console… There, the Hades’ AI camera was looking at me…
“We conquered the enemy with kill machines… But are the machines that kill us… Who will kill the machines if they rose some day against us?”
End of transmission. 18th Aug 3300.
By Germán Jaramillo# 685605