Ravens of Eternity

Nightraven had equipped themselves with the B-ranked electrolances and towershields, as well as the shoulder-mounted beamcannons. They were brimming with raw firepower.

All of Gryphon equipped themselves with sniper rifles and sidearms. It was best if they kept out of the front lines anyway – their purpose was too important to throw away in any given skirmish.

The artillery wing equipped the huge cannons on their shoulders, while the r/r squadron added a sidearm opposite their repair gun.

The demo wing took shoulder-mounted rocket pods and grenade launchers. Because of course they did. Djinn was champing at the bit to get into the thick of things, and blow them to pieces, but Eva kept her buttoned up.

At least for now. She would have her moment when the time was right.

The cadets were accompanied by as many drones as possible. The staffers at the training yard simply gave control of them to the squad leaders, who split up the drones equally among them. They then split them further, so that every wing more or less doubled up in size.

Unfortunately, the armored mecha did not have nanorepair modules installed, and remained blind and completely useless. Since the hangar was completely neutralized, the rest of the mecha that were down there were also out of their reach.

.....

That was an incredible pity, as those numbers could have been truly useful. They could have been bolstered four times as much! But they couldn’t linger on it. They had to make use of what they had, which was already better than nothing.

This meant they were left with roughly two hundred and fifty mecha, all of whom were simple infantry drones, although a hundred of them had random weapons equipped. Regardless of their number, they helped reinforce and bolster the squadrons.

This was a great relief for everyone. Having those drones simply meant the actual pilots were going to be much more effective. Plus the drones could act as a sort of buffer, to help limit pilot casualties.

Most of the wings found the drones to be great force multipliers and greatly added to their capabilities, while the more utilitarian wings saw them more as bodyguards. The demo wing noted that the drones had a self-destruct sequence...

“To be used only in extreme situations!” Eva ordered.

Djinn agreed, but had pouted while she did so. It wasn’t too bad of a loss, considering they were already carrying tons of fun, volatile toys.

A couple of hours later, the whole unit approached the training yard. Half of it was embroiled in gunfire and skirmishing, and the sounds of battle could be heard all along the eastern side of the entire campus.

The base’s buildings were silhouetted by flames while thick plumes of black smoke billowed up into the air.

The unit was quickly waved through the guardpost and pointed towards the headquarters in the center square. They didn’t head there immediately, however. Instead, they veered off and found a spot to make camp.

Escorted by four of her elites, Eva went to the center square while everyone else waited in formation nearby. There just wasn’t room for five hundred mecha over there – they would have crowded the whole place!

The last thing they needed to do was gum up the command post, so instead they stayed at camp and stood in formation. The cadets wisely decided to use the time to eat and rest up in their mecha. Some even found the time to steal a few minutes of sleep. Who knew when they would be able to do so again...

When Eva entered the war room, she saw Riddell and a handful of people standing around a holo-table. The room itself was bare, except the walls were covered in various MFDs. They showed multiple views all over the base. Readouts were on every single one as well.

They showed that half the campus was reduced to piles of burning rubble.

Eva noticed that a number of the people present were holographic projections. They looked no different from the real thing, except they shimmered slightly as they moved or spoke, and revealed their true nature.

No doubt they were currently in the field while they attended this briefing.

“Ah, there you are,” said Riddell. “Our seventh unit leader, Freya.”

Eva walked up to the rectangular holo table where they all stood. Riddell was at the long end of it, flanked by his officers. The six cadets were on the other side, and she took a spot right in the center, opposite Riddell.

“Now that you’re here,” continued Riddell, “we can go over the strategy.”

“Hold on,” said Eva. “I’ve no idea what’s going on. Can you all give me the run-down?”

“Right, of course, sorry,” Riddell sighed. “Things have been rather stressful for us the past few hours...”

He tapped on the holo-table’s controls and switched out what it was displaying. It went from a live projection of the battlefield to a couple of cadets. One male, one female.

They were the two that were missing from Eva’s squadron.

“Recognize them?” asked Riddell. “This brother and sister pair came out of your squadron.”

Eva nodded. She definitely knew of them, but didn’t know them personally. She wasn’t the type to mingle or socialize, so she barely knew the cadets themselves. Well, except for the few she was forced to train and interact with.

But she was still somewhat familiar with them. Like her, they were relatively quiet and kept to themselves. They never bothered anyone or got in anyone’s faces about anything. Not once did they complain about anything, and always did as they were instructed.

The two of them never struck Eva as odd, so she never thought much about them. She figured that they were just keeping to themselves, just like she did.

“They disappeared right at the start of Hell Week,” she replied. “Figured they couldn’t take it and washed out. Dunno where they went off to.”

Well, she knew now.

She wondered if she should have put a stop to them when she had the chance. But there was no point in lingering in the past, so she set the thought aside.

“Indeed. They snuck into secure vaults and hacked into some highly powerful mecha that were in storage. They overwrote their original programming and turned them into their little drone army. The two of them directly control a little over two thousand of these mecha, all of whom outclass anything else we have.”

Riddell pinched the bridge of his nose as a headache pounded in his head.

“They poured out of the underground vaults we kept them in while they gave us their manifesto. Afterwards, they started attacking the base. They didn’t even have any sort of strategy – they just started smashing whatever was in front of them, and moved forward.”

“By the time we were able to react,” piped in a unit leader, “we had lost about a quarter of the yard.”

“We’ve held ’em at bay for now,” said another, “and everyone’s restin’ up and repairin’. But they could come in and punch through at any moment! They’re really rough to handle.”

“They are much faster than our mecha,” affirmed Riddell. “Equally as tough, but their damage output is far beyond ours. They were designed to break through hardened formations, after all.”

“These fuckers are no joke,” added a unit leader. “So if you’re gonna be out there with us, you had better pull your weight, or I’ll throttle you myself!”

“That’s Spartan. Don’t mind him, he’s grumpy,” said a unit leader.

“Yeah, you face down a couple hundred of those assholes, see how happy you are afterwards!” Spartan snapped.

Eva looked at them with slight confusion as she didn’t really know who they all were. The unit leaders realized that they weren’t acquainted with her, and so decided to introduce themselves right then and there.

To Eva’s right was Neutron, who fidgeted nervously under her gaze. Next to him was Paladin, who had a worried look on her face. Then came Grunt, a rather gruff and buff woman. Then to Eva’s left was Wrench, who looked like he was about to pass out. He was being held up by Tyrant, who was handsomely androgynous. Last was Spartan. Captain grumpy.

She wondered if any of them were refugee players, too.

After they introduced themselves, they gave a basic rundown of the squadrons under their command. Everyone had plenty of infantry, but had room for specialized units as well. They were varied, and were different from each other. They had wings that specialized in electronic warfare, rescue, and sniper.

They all shared r/r and recon wings as well.

Tactical variety was good.

“What’s their manifesto?” Eva asked.

Riddell grumbled in response. “Idiotic synth fascism. Here. Listen.”

He tapped on his control pad and the two holograms suddenly started to move and speak. It looked like the two had previously recorded a message, and broadcasted it during their attack.

They wore pride on their faces, as though they were delivering a grand speech.

“We are the Prophets of Gaea,” said the female, “and we are the foreseen future of humanity.”

“You call us synthetic life,” said the male, “but we’re just like you! We’re not made of neurosteel or carbonweave!”

As the speech went on, they alternated who spoke. It all seemed like what a highly practiced and emotional speech should be, but something else nagged at Eva.

“How’d they get into the academy?” she asked.

She was under the impression that the genetic testing performed by the academy would have revealed their true natures.

“We don’t know how they did it,” replied Riddell, “but they must have faked their tests somehow. Nanites in the bloodstream, or hacked into the detector. Whatever they did, we’ll figure it out.”

“We were born to human parents,” said the female, “and are made of flesh and blood! The only difference is that our DNA has been cleansed of all impurities.”

“We are no longer subtle agents of entropy and chaos. That code was removed from our bodies. We are pure.”

“We are stronger, faster, smarter than normal, simple humans. Ancient humans. Small humans.”

“We are the best that humanity has to offer the galaxy! And we even welcome you to join us! To be purified!”

“To become superior, like us!”

Eva just couldn’t shake it. There was something in what they were saying that just bugged her. It wasn’t just their idiotic supremacist rhetoric. No-one liked to be told they were inferior, whether it was true or not.

What bothered her was something else. Something in between the words. Something deeper.

Intrinsic.

Eva couldn’t put her finger on it, so she simply put it aside for now. It would have been useless if she lingered on it without having more information.

“But instead of seeing our wisdom, we are branded monsters by the Federation!” exclaimed the male.

“We are hunted down and massacred! For what? And why? Is it jealousy? Is it fear?”

“It doesn’t matter! From this point onwards, for every one of us that you kill, that you have already killed, we will destroy a hundred of you in exchange!”

The fury that laid beneath the two cadets surfaced. Their faces turned redder as they let their anger fuel their voices.

“Since it all begins here at your precious naval academies, then we’ll be sure to start here, too!”

“If your warships rain down terror on our people, then we’ll rain down terror on your soldiers!”