Motion on a fourth dimensional plane
Note: Well, I never saw this coming - me, writing fanfiction for Love Hina. Usually, I write (exclusively) for Halo, but given a long series of blocks and inability to think 'Halo', I began writing this, adding on every time I couldn't write for Halo. This idea came together after several revisions and ideas, inspirations from other works in the Love Hina section, and the trailer for Battlefield: 2142. After a long period of time, I've now decided to get this out.
I apologize for the overall length of this 'chapter' (chapter, my ass - 23 pages in MS Word). I went a little overboard with the details, and it sounds more like an original piece, but it eventually gets there. Assuming I have time, I'll keep up with this one. Also, seeing how I have finished my exams (Physics blows) and how my summer has just began, I figure I can do some more writing, so I will write to the best of my ability for either this or my Halo writing.
Enough - let's get this behemoth over with.
Chapter 1: Firefight
The armored personnel carrier's engine was surprisingly quiet. Its lack of sound was covered up by the beats of ancient rock music playing through a set of hastily installed speakers. Some genius in the 143rd Mechanized Infantry Division had the idea of putting audio devices inside the APCs and playing rock music to 'motivate' the soldiers. Three of the seven other soldiers, part of my squad, inside the APC rocked slightly, as though keeping to the beat of the music. The others, including myself, didn't even bother. We've been through enough to know that motivation only comes from basic instinct.
The date was November 12, 2145, three years after the start of The War. Funny, we still didn't have a name for this conflict. Historians were preparing to call it the Eastern European War, the Eurasian War, or hypothetically speaking, the Fourth World War, since the third was pretty much agreed on to be Cold War back in the 20th century, or the War on Terrorism in the early 21st, but for the soldiers, we simply dubbed it 'The War.' There wasn't much thought to it – on one side, the Commonwealth of Democratic Nations, and on the other, the Eurasian Bloc. They are the two largest military alliances on the planet, both with lots of soldiers and a strangely apparent need to take over the world after a whole series of unfortunate incidents occurring worldwide following the turn of the century.
I don't exactly know what the hell happened on the twenty-third of June, 2142. We say they fired first, and I'm sure they are saying the opposite, but war broke out, and now soldiers were running around in all corners of the globe shooting each other.
A week ago, command sent us out after realizing they needed to establish a new front, starting at the Bloc controlled Japan, and entering into Siberia and China. The purpose was to put pressure on the Bloc from this new front. From there, we could take the largest urban centers closest to the Sea of Japan in either China or Japan and give our bombers, as well as infantry, a good set of bases to operation from. We had landed via a massive air drop into the Chiba Prefecture in the Greater Tokyo Area and began taking ground easily, either encountering scattered Bloc soldiers or practically no resistance at all. We thought we had it easy, until we entered the capital city of the region, Chiba.
We were deep inside the city when an IED detonated next to our convoy and killed one of our guys. Then the entire place lit up, Bloc soldiers and civilians allied to the Bloc opened fire, having waited for some signal to fight. That IED was it, and the firefight had begun. One of the guys was hit with a burst from a .70 Cal anti-infantry round and died moments later, and another took heavy fire, was wounded severely when a rifle slug pierced his ankle and immobilized him long enough for Bloc soldiers to finish him off.
We still managed to take the city. Officially, the Commonwealth Military Command's informal after action review said we had done so with 'minimal casualties.' True, we lost only those three in exchange for over two hundred Bloc infantry casualties and taking the entire city, but it still troubles me somewhat. I knew those guys, and it feels strange, to know that one minute, I was talking to them about normal day-to-day life, and the next minute, they were gone, and that I would have to call for three new soldiers.
I tried not to think about it. It was bad enough to lose them, but it felt even worse to think about losing them, and what role I played in their deaths.
"Sierra-6, this is Convoy-Charlie, can you get a fix on Bravo?"
"Negative, no sign of Bravo. They could be hiding in all these buildings for all we know. Streets look clear though."
"No shit? That's what we thought about Chiba and the whole place was fucking crawling with Bravo."
'Echo Bravo' or simply, 'Bravo' was the name we gave to the soldiers of the Eurasian Bloc, and 'E' and 'B' corresponding to the 'Echo' and 'Bravo.'
We were in a typical urban environment, a playground for urban warfare. After capturing the Chiba and Saitama Prefectures, we are now moving onto the Kanagawa Prefecture, while another group, Convoy-Alpha, was going to move north. If we could all move fast enough, we can take all of the Greater Tokyo Area and reinforce it for more forces to arrive, and use it as a staging ground for follow-up operations.
Convoy-Charlie was the name for our group, and we consisted of four eight man infantry squads, supported by APCs and a pair of tanks. Above us, operating as command and intelligence for the operations in the area was Sierra-6, a spy satellite that command used to coordinate the offensive. Other than that, we were well armed and ready to fight anything that got in our way.
I looked at the other soldiers inside the APC, 2nd Squad – my squad. I had earned the right to command them long ago. We were all dressed in the Commonwealth's standard combat uniforms, consisting of thick layers of soft armor and insulation, with the outer-most layer patterned in urban disruptive camouflage, with dark armored plating covering our upper torso, shoulders, forearms, elbows, knees, and shins. Our helmets were complete with face masks and a pair of large goggles that doubled as eye protection and a computer heads up display, covered our faces, and provided us with an unnervingly machine-like appearance. Because of the way our equipment covered every bit of skin and flesh, we looked more like robots than human. The equipment wasn't there just for show, however – it actually worked, our armor able to withstand high powered rifle rounds and fragmentations, and our HUDs provided us with an extensive array of tactical data and information.
Better yet, all of that was just on the outside. Inside, buried beneath our skin existed a range of nanites, nanomachines, and implants that only furthered our ability to wage war.
Despite the superior equipment, fighting the Bloc was still troublesome. The problem here was how those allied with the Bloc, and the Bloc themselves, never fought us in the open. In Japan, they preferred to lie in wait until we came to them, and only then would we all fight. This made progress slower than it should have been, and kept us uneasy for long stretches of time.
The APC lumbered along, part of a convoy sweeping through the area. Radio chatter was at a minimum. There wasn't anything out there. So far, this was a cake run.
Cue in the sudden and unexpected IED detonation and weapons fire.
In a single instant, everything blurred as we all leapt into action. Shouting filled the radio channels, updated tactical data scrolled by on our HUDs.
"Get out of the APC! Go, go, Go!" I barked, pointing towards the rear doors.
We quickly and promptly poured out. The adrenaline kicked in when the IED detonated, and everything was reduced to a blur. My hands shook slightly, not enough to make me drop my rifle. As soon as I was out of the APC, my mind instantly set itself to 'soldier.'
There were more explosions, one to the front of the convoy and another to the rear. They had to be the tanks. We're now pinned down in the middle of a street without our tanks, sitting ducks with our APCs.
"Squad, get to cover! Get clear of the APC!" I shouted. The eight soldiers under my command acknowledged and broke to find cover. We found it in between an alleyway. Moments later, an RPG came almost out of nowhere and took out the APC. As we took cover there, I finally noticed the surrounding area.
A thick blanket of snow covered the area, and lazy flakes of snow drifted down from the sky. It was the end of November, and the snowfall was strangely full for the season. My HUD reported a temperature of about -24º C, quite chilly if not for my suit regulating my temperature.
"Where's the fuck's the fire coming from!" a soldier on my squad shouted frantically, looking around in shock.
Taking up a position next to a corner, I peered out at the firefight. Working with both what I was seeing and with an updated map, I spotted where some of the fire was coming from.
"I've got a visual on multiple squads of Bravo, down the street, reinforcing from around the corner, location unknown, light firearms, and at 9 o'clock, apartment building balcony, fifth floor, assorted firearms and possible AT" I reported. I summarized the information and sent it via ICON, the Integrated Command and Objective Network, our battlefield communications network, to all friendly units on the street and around us.
I peered out, watching the muzzle flashes from both down the street and from the apartment building. There was a thicker smoke and fire from the apartment, meaning they probably had at least a mounted machine gun up there. I switched to thermal vision, and I picked them out like black on white.
They were the immediate threat. They had the height advantage, and if left alone, they could fire down on us quite easily.
"Fire sector, on the balcony!" I ordered, pointing towards the source of the enemy fire.
Our IW52 bullpup assault rifles fired caseless 6.8mm depleted uranium rounds, a great balance between rate of fire, stopping power, and armor piercing capabilities. In addition, the IW52 also carried a 20mm shotgun-style 'utility launcher,' called so only because it was not just firing grenades, but also shotgun shells, specialized rounds, or 20mm devices. With our communications and protection capabilities already at a higher level, we needed a weapon to match and the IW52 was the result.
My squad moved into position and we began to fire, peppering the small floor of the apartment building with depleted uranium rounds. The dense and heavy bullets simply tore through the concrete walls around the area, but it still wasn't enough. Gunfire burst out from the balcony at our position, and we were lucky to have pulled back behind cover soon enough.
The Bloc favored using an unusually large 14.5x60mm round, and an even larger and older fashioned self loading rifle. Their magazines carried about twenty rounds less than ours, were three kilograms heavier, had a fire rate restricted to semiautomatic, and had enough kickback to dislocate a jaw or shoulder, if held inappropriately. In spite of its shortcomings, it made it up with power and power alone. In addition, Bloc troops also favored a heavier barreled, fully automatic variant that they loved to mount in open windows.
From the sounds of the fire, they had at least one of those on the balcony, and it was raining down on us.
"We've got to get some frags in there!" I ordered, pointing to two soldiers, then to the balcony. I signaled the others to cover them. Popping back out of cover only temporarily, we opened fire yet again.
I shouldered my weapon and lined up the red targeting reticule that was displayed on my HUD with the area of the balcony and the Bloc soldiers fortifying it. As I exhaled, I squeezed off a pair of bursts, watching as the bullets impacted around the area of the balcony. A new display appeared, and it updated the number of bullets I had left in my magazine.
"Frags out, on three – one, two, three!"
The two soldiers leaned out and each fired a 20mm fragmentation grenade set on a timer into the balcony with use of their utility launchers. Five seconds later after they landed, a sharp explosion filled the air, and the balcony was reduced to nothing but debris and smoke.
I slightly hit the side of my helmet shortly after the explosion. My ears were ringing, and the sound and force of the explosion still stayed with me. It was an overwhelming feeling, one that I never truly got rid of even after training. I brought up an electrocardiogram on my HUD and noticed an increase in my pulse. The adrenaline created in the midst of the IED attack and the Bloc ambush had got me going.
It wasn't going to stop just yet – this fight was still continuing. Gunfire continued to sound, and like the Sirens of Homer's Odyssey drawing sailors to their deaths, the gunfire drew us closer into battle.
"Convoy-Charlie, this is Sierra-6, does anybody copy, over? What's your status, over?"
I heard it first. I turned my radio on and sent a reply.
"This is Sergeant Randall, 2nd Squad, we read you" I replied. "We're taking hostile fire, and our convoy is pinned down, over."
"Roger that, Sergeant, we're sending additional ground support, ETA, five minutes. We've confirmed the fortified building where Bravo's reinforcing from. I'm sending a waypoint to you now. You've got to take the building; there may be enough intel inside there to help with future operations."
A waypoint then appeared on my HUD. I cross-checked it with my map, and figured out exactly where it was and what type of building it was. It was farther down the street, and then a left turn across a bridge and from there past a choke of tight streets was the fortified building.
I looked at the map and noted how big the building was. It sprawled across a large area, connected from here to there by a single bridge. The bridge was an obvious kill zone, made possible from the buildings looking towards it, and the fortified building itself was undoubtedly heavily protected and would require anything short of carpet bombing to take it out.
On the other hand, it would be a great rally point for us and a base of operations in the area, assuming we could capture it without being shot up.
"What is that building, Sergeant?" a soldier asked me, the same tactical data being sent to all our HUDs. "Looks like a mansion or a castle to me."
True, it did. The size and scale of the entire structure suggested so. I pulled up some more information from anything ICON had access to in the local area. Luckily, there was some info about the building.
"It's a hotel, or an inn or some sort," I said, notifying the rest of my squad. "'Hinata Inn', from what I'm digging up."
"For fucks sake, I hope its five star" one of my squad mates said in response to the new information. I supposed I would hope so as well. I looked back at the diagrams and maps. Interestingly enough, the buildings in that area was older fashioned. In place of metal and concrete, most of the buildings were still wood. It was a little piece that intrigued me.
"This is 3rd Squad! To any friendly units, we're pinned down, I repeat, we're pinned down by Bravo, next to the bridge! We're taking fire from multiple directions! We need immediate assistance, I repeat, immediate assistance!"
"This is 2nd Squad, I read you," I replied quickly. "We're en route, hold on."
I dropped all everything of what I was thinking just prior and signaled to my squad to move out. Our destination was down the street where 3rd Squad was pinned down at. We split up into two four man fire teams and moved on, leapfrogging up the street. We needed to reach 3rd Squad as quick as possible. From the sounds of the gunfire, they were being shot at quite a bit, and could be overrun in moments.
My HUD picked up their Squad leader's IFF tags, placing his location inside of a corner store open to the street level. Staying close to the wall, my squad and I moved in closer, until I was close enough to knock on the side of the store's window.
"Friendlies! This is 2nd Squad!" I yelled.
Bullets then snapped by, resulting in us ducking for cover. There were more Bloc infantry, even farther down the street. As they came into full view, I opened fire, watching as bursts of depleted uranium rounds cut them down. The exchange of fire only happened briefly before we moved into the safety of the corner store.
The inside of the store had seen better days. Everything was a mess – shelves were knocked over, products were scattered all over the ground, and scattered puddles of blood covered the ground. In addition to 3rd Squad, my IFF tags also indicated that 4th and 5th Squads were also inside.
"Great to see you, 2nd!" 3rd Squad's leader, Sergeant First Class A. McDonald according to his IFF tag, happily greeted. "We were able to pick up the remains of 4th and 5th. IED and a bunch of RPGs took out the rest of their squads."
I looked over at the remains of 4th and 5th – of the eight soldiers assigned in each squad three were left for 4th Squad, and four soldiers remained for 5th, two of them severely injured. 3rd Squad was at full strength, and so was my 2nd Squad.
It was a goddamn mess.
"Get some fire out there on Bravo!" McDonald ordered. I did the same, ordering my guys to set up near the windows and fire on the Bloc infantry just outside.
I fired until the ammunition display on my HUD read empty. My thumb pressed the magazine release and the empty clip slid out from the magazine well. As it did so, I reached into a pouch on my vest and grabbed another magazine, smoothly loading it in and cycling my IW52's bolt. It was a quick process that I did almost unconsciously. It was good, since I could get back into the shooting almost immediately.
"Sergeant, we've got a pair of Walkers coming in!"
As the news broke, a hearty cheer went out amongst the soldiers, including the wounded. I pulled up my updated map and a pair of symbols was displayed moving up the street we were originally on.
I cheered out as well. We had every reason to cheer out. The MCU77 or 'Walker' was a twelve meter tall bipedal tank, and it was the core component to any combat mission the Commonwealth embarked upon. Fitted into its thick armor plated hull were a pair of multi-barreled, rapid fire .70 Cal machine guns, also complemented by a series of smaller guns fitted above and below its body. It was also fitted with rocket pods, and a pair of high velocity cannons for long range work against hardened targets.
Due to the legs it walked on, it was highly mobile, and could go anywhere without being stopped. At the same time, it was a predominantly psychological weapon – if I were a Bloc soldier, and I saw a twelve meter tall tank walking towards me with guns blazing, I would shit myself.
Outside, the relatively mild sounding gunfire was interrupted by a long and ear-splitting burst of fire. I watched in almost morbid curiosity as the Bloc soldiers on the street were torn apart, literally, into bloody ribbons. The ground rumbled as the Walkers came around the corner. I bent my neck up to see the behemoth in its awe-inspiring glory.
There was only one thing better than a Walker – two of them. And that was what we had right now.
"This is Walker-3-8 to 2nd Squad, we've arrived."
"We've noticed, 3-8," I replied. "We've got to take the building, the Hinata Inn, but it's heavily fortified."
"Acknowledged, 2nd Squad; advance up the bridge, we'll move along and provide suppression. We've also got a gunship inbound as well, so you're in good hands."
"Copy that Walker-3-8, we'll be moving," I replied, excited with the possibility of a gunship also assisting us. "Who's staying with the wounded?"
"Don't worry about us," a soldier on 4th Squad replied. "You and 3rd Squad go ahead; we've called for medivacs, and we'll hold here and wait for 'em."
I acknowledged and signaled my squad to move out, McDonald doing the same. As we moved out, the Walkers took the lead and began to lumber along, firing as they walked along the bridge. We followed closely, staying as close to the legs for cover as possible. I supposed a disadvantage to the Walkers was the lack of cover they provided for infantry when on the move, not like a tank or normal tracked vehicle. I could only hope we wouldn't get shot. That did seem unlikely though, since the Bloc infantry holding positions across the bridge were raining fire on us, but at least the Walkers compensated for it by returning fire. Their endless spray of .70 Cal tore up the smaller buildings, probably taking out machine gun posts set up there as well.
Suddenly, there was a puff of smoke from the roof of one of the buildings, and then the characteristic smoke trail of an antitank missile. It sped its way towards one of the Walker – only to be shot down by a machine gun on its upper body.
The other nice thing about a Walker? The scanners and targeting computers were so precise they could detect incoming missiles, automatically lock onto them and shoot them down before they came close.
The Walkers unleashed a fury of bullets and missiles into the buildings, demolishing them with ease. We continued on with almost no resistance, penetrating farther into the area and closer to the Hinata Inn. It was until we reached the base of a long flight of stairs leading up to the front of the inn when we encountered the heaviest resistance.
"Get to cover! Don't stand out in the open, get your heads down!"
They had machine guns mounted above us. We took whatever cover we could behind the Walkers and let them do to shooting, their multi-barreled machine guns tearing the Bloc troops at the top of the steps apart. The Bloc troops kept up their fire, however. They reorganized as quickly as they could, setting up their weapons and firing down on us. The only thing that stood between them finishing off the rest of us was the pair of Walkers.
Suddenly a magnificent roar broke through in the air. Something came screaming out of the dark grey sky towards the Bloc troops at the top of the steps.
"This is Golf-1-4-9er, we're coming in hot! Keep your heads down - we're gonna give 'em a haircut!"
Even before it came into view, I recognized the blocky shape of the AH240 'Seraph' gunship screaming into its attack vector. As it lined itself up, the gunship's rocket pods and cannons ignited, leaving only smoking bits of the Bloc soldiers holding up our progress.
"Come on, let's move! Get up the stairs and get inside the inn!" McDonald shouted at his squad. I did the same, and we were finally moving up the steps.
When we reached the top, more Bloc troops and armed civilians came out of the Hinata Inn's entrance. Our squads stopped and opened fire, mowing down the group with ease. On the second and third stories soldiers attempted to fire on us from above, but their attempt was cut short by the Seraph gunship still hovering in the area.
"Thanks for the assist, Golf-1-4-9er" I spoke over the radio with the pilot.
"No problem Sergeant, just get your asses inside and kick theirs out."
"Affirmative, doing so now."
Our squads reached the entrance and slowed down. Fighting outside was one thing, but close quarters combat was another. Our two squads quickly broke into four man fire teams and loaded shotgun shells, door breaching rounds, or flashbangs into our utility launchers. I opted for shotgun shells for the extra close range punch. The preparation process was quick and smooth, and we were already inside in a matter of seconds.
"Entry, clear."
"Damn, this place ain't too bad for a hotel" one of the soldiers on my fire team commented.
"The only thing we need now is beer, ladies, some shit to shut our nanites off, and then we'd have a hotel!" another added, poking fun at the 'limitations' caused by our nanite injections.
"Cut the chatter and watch for Bravo" I said, keeping everybody in the fight. As nice as this inn was, we'll take time to perhaps enjoy it after we've pushed every Bloc soldier out of it.
The entry or lobby, whichever it could be, had two hallways, one to the left and another to the back right corner, and a narrow stairwell right in front of us.
"Sergeant Randall, take your fire teams up the stairs and secure the second floor, we'll take the first" McDonald ordered.
"Got it," I replied. "2nd Squad, form up on me! We're going up."
McDonald and his fire teams moved out to secure the first floor, while my teams and I moved up the stairs. I went first, and everything else followed. Stairways usually freaked me out. Moving up a stairway in the middle of a close quarter's battle provided a whole range of danger and risk.
But, I trusted my team and our training enough to go ahead with it.
"Clear" I reported, continuing to move on.
We were now faced with a hallway with several doors. The walls and doors were all shredded and torn up, complements to the Seraph and its guns. I switched on my thermal vision mode and took a look around, noting several blue body signatures behind the doors. The gunship had done its work.
"Farrell, take point. Let's keep moving people" I ordered, and we continued to move.
Our pacing was slower, but methodical. Our thermal vision was precise, and only found dead bodies. It was until we went around the corner before we picked something up.
"I'm picking up about a half dozen Bravo, second door to our right and another four behind the door on our right" Farrell reported. I saw the same thing. From the looks of their movement inside, they were frantic, trying to reorganize themselves after the gunship attack.
"Breach, flash, and clear, on Zulu" I ordered, pointing to the doors.
I took one fire team to a door and another went to the other. One of the soldiers kept the muzzle of their utility launcher to the door, and we waited.
"Waiting for Zulu" both teams reported.
I looked at our positioning one final time, trying to pick apart anything we were doing wrong and correct it before we would move in. Then again, there wasn't a need to. We were all trained to the best of our abilities. We were ready.
"Zulu, go!"
There was a thunderous boom as the utility launchers fired and breached the doors. Immediately after, the next soldier fired in flashbangs. After the non-lethal grenades detonated in a magnificent flash and deafening bang, we moved in. Once inside, we spread out and cleared out the room.
The Bloc soldiers were stunned by the grenade, which left them to our mercy. I raised my rifle and sent a burst through one of the soldiers, and then another. One of them was running around in circles screaming. I switched to my utility launcher and fired a shotgun shell, watching as the round threw the soldier back, his body crumbling to the gound. It wasn't long before everybody in the room was segregated between us, and the dead.
"Clear!" a soldier breaching the room across from us reported.
I was about to do the same, when I noticed one of the Bloc soldiers in the far back of the room still moving. I then realized there was a grenade in his hand. I raised my rifle again and fired, finishing off the soldier for good. The grenade dropped from his hands and rolled around in the center of the room.
It was armed.
"Grenade, get out of here!" I shouted, pushing my teammates out the room.
I had barely gotten the last soldier out when I felt something slam against me. My back hit the wall, and I could taste blood forming in my mouth. I then slumped to the ground. My arms and chest burned in pain. The pain was extinguished in milliseconds after the nanites in my body administered enhanced painkillers and a whole series of drugs to help me recover.
God bless the drugs.
I opened my eyes and looked around. Bloody bits of arms, body parts, and gore covered the walls. Looking around, I noticed a distinct lack of damage to the room. No wonder – it had to be an improvised, homemade concussion grenade, a poorly constructed one as well. Concussion grenades were designed to kill by explosive force, and they didn't have the fragmentations that would have gutted me. It luckily lacked the explosive force of a military issued concussion grenade, and the best it could do was throw me back in one direction.
It would take more than a homemade bomb to finish me off.
"Sergeant Randall is down, I repeat, Sergeant Randall is down!" one of the soldiers on my fire team shouted in panic. "We need a medic!"
"Relax, I'm fine," I said, standing up, picking up my rifle and briefly checking for any damage. "I'm barely wounded, actually. Come on, let's keep moving-"
I then heard a creak from the floor boards. The creak continued and got louder and louder. One floor board then snapped, and then another, and another. Within moments, the entire floor had collapsed.
And I was falling down with it.
"Sergeant! Grab my hand!" a soldier cried out, throwing his hand out.
I tried to grab it, but I missed. I continued to fall down. As soon as my back hit something, everything blacked out. The frantic cries of my squad echoed and then faded. I groaned in pain and tried to get back up. The drugs were steadying being injected into me, and it helped to a certain amount to get me back up on my feet. I took a moment to take off my face mask and cleaned off the blood, then putting it back on. As soon as I did, I looked around, trying to make sense of where I landed.
But as I looked around, I realized something was wrong. The place I landed in was all dark, and was eerily silent. When we entered the building, I could still hear gunfire, but now, everything was quiet. I just fell down from the second floor, and logically, I fell to somewhere on the first floor.
Looking up, I realized the ceiling was in perfect condition, as though no part of it broke or was in any danger of falling apart.
Where the hell was I? Didn't I just fall from one floor down to the next? If so, then where the hell am I?
"2nd Squad, this is Sergeant Randall, does anybody copy, over?"
No response.
"Sergeant Randall to 2nd Squad, if anybody can hear me, please reply, over? Can anybody hear me?"
Again, no response.
Was my radio damaged in the fall? I took my helmet off and checked the equipment. No, it was fine. The radio was in working condition and my HUD was still operational. Our equipment wouldn't fail like this. I tried more channels, but I found nothing. I pulled up my HUD and tried to locate my squad.
I found nothing.
I felt a strange feeling build up in my stomach when that realization kicked in. This shouldn't be happening. My equipment could pick up a friendly IFF tag from a kilometer underground past reinforced concrete and steel, but it couldn't find one now?
I couldn't connect to anything – 2nd or 3rd Squad, ICON, the pair of Walkers outside, or even Sierra-6.
I looked around once more. This was making no sense at all. Well, one way or the other, I would find out. I checked my HUD once again, bringing up the display of the mission tracker, a utility that our HUDs used to keep track of where and how far we've moved on a mission. It was there to help with making after action reviews, but it also provided a rough map of where we've been walking. I know for sure it kept track of me leaving base, riding in the APC and then crossing the bridge, fighting through town and entering the Hinata Inn. Strangely, all of that was gone. It was now tracking where I was moving now. It was as though everything before didn't even happen.
It had to be a mechanical malfunction for sure. Those eggheads at Commonwealth Advanced Research and Development would shit themselves if I reported this type of equipment failure in.
The location I was in was a long and dimly lit hallway. The design of the old wood paneling on the walls suggested it was Japanese. This point disturbed me further. My equipment failure still didn't account for why, after falling one floor down, I appeared in a completely different area.
I brought my rifle up and carefully moved along. First thing's first, I needed to figure out just where the hell I was, and then from there, maybe find out what happened.
I moved along carefully, looking around and checking around me. I then came upon a strange looking panel of wood. It looked…uneven. I touched it, and realized it could move. I moved it away with ease, and realized it was a trapdoor, covering the entrance to a tunnel.
So far so good, I suppose.
I crawled in, the tunnel being large enough for both my equipment and I, and moved along. Strange, it felt as though it was going up. It worried me a bit, since the tunnel seemed as though it was carved out of solid brick and ground. And assuming I ended up on the first floor, it now appears as through I ended up even farther down.
Again, this was making no sense, along with everything else that has happened since I have fallen. I stopped thinking about it, for the sake of my own already tampered sanity.
I continued on until I reached a dead end. Well, it wasn't a dead end. I poked the muzzle of my rifle forward and opened it. Turns out, it was a covering. I pushed it aside and slipped out of the tunnel.
I raised my weapon and scanned the area. No hostiles.
Wait, something was wrong.
I looked around the area once again. This place was a kitchen, evident from the oven and all the rest. In the center of the room was a large table. But then again, something was off about the place.
It was too clean.
This place is in the middle of a war, and yet it seems as though this place was cleaned on a regular basis – a definite far cry from what soldiers during wartime would do. I covered my eyes slightly from the sunlight coming in from the window looking into the kitchen.
Wait…sunlight? Wasn't it the middle of winter outside? Outside here, it seemed like spring or fall.
As I walked forward a bit, I then noticed something on the table. Getting a closer look, I realized it was a magazine or book of some sort. It was one of the older types, still bound together in the older fashion, rather than the usual digital and electronic devices. The writing on it was in Japanese. I engaged my HUD's translator, and quickly skimmed it. It was nothing of importance – just some random magazine of some sorts.
I then found the date printed on the magazine. I recoiled in shock.
1999.
1999.
1999?
Today, according to what I know, backed up by my HUD, is November 12, 2145.
2145.
It then clicked together – why I wasn't able to contact my unit or anything else, why everything around me is so different – I just traveled one hundred and forty-six years back in time.
No, it was impossible. Time travel doesn't exist. It's impossible. It can't be done.
146 years – from 2145 back to 1999.
What was going on? What's happening? All I did was fall down a broken floor. I didn't break any laws of physics or anything.
Why the hell am I here? What, how…?
I looked around, unsure of what the do. I couldn't describe what I was feeling. This was simply, and utterly impossible. I was trained for everything else; I knew how to react in any type of situation that required quick thought and action.
But time travel? Just what the hell was going on?
I then heard a door slide open. It was the door just next to me, one entering into the kitchen. My instincts kicked in – I quickly turned around, lowered myself into a combat stance, and pointed my rifle at the door.
It was a little girl.
She was young, probably a junior high student, and she was wearing a green dress with a long sleeved light purple shirt underneath. Her short blue hair matched her big blue eyes, and only compounded her diminutive size and frame.
She eyes were widened in both shock and fear – caused either by the large assault rifle I was pointing at her, my robotic and machine-like appearance, or a combination of both.
I slowly lowered my rifle and lifted a hand, trying to at least symbolize that I wasn't going to hurt her. She backed away a bit, holding herself in fear. I switched on an external microphone and set it to project my voice in Japanese. It wasn't exactly necessary – I know how to read, speak, and listen to Japanese. Hell, it was the reason I was singled out of hundreds of other soldiers and selected to deploy into Japan in the first place.
"It's okay," I said, slowly and carefully, trying to sound as gentle as possible. "I'm not going to hurt you."
I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I never dealt with children – ever. Worse, I never dealt with children from another time era. In training we were to tell the civilians to 'get the hell out of the way,' and keep moving. What the hell am I supposed to now?
I unconsciously took a step forward. It was an instinct, done after finding a civilian, to move in a secure them. I didn't notice myself doing that. Apparently she did.
The little blue haired girl ran off screaming.
"Wait, stop!" I yelled, and ran after her.
What the hell was I doing? I should have stayed where I was, I should have retreated back to the tunnel, I should have done something, other than chase after her. What am I supposed to do!
As I went through the door, I entered into a dining room or something. It had a large table and chairs, and seemed adequate for serving a good number of people. I managed to corner the little girl here. She was scared and cowered away in a corner of the dining room.
This shouldn't be happening. I was approaching her as though she was a hostile. This was only made so by my assault rifle.
"Listen, could you stop for a second?" I said, keeping my voice level. "I'm not going to hurt you; I need to ask you some questions, just to get my bearings straight."
I pulled out the sling on my rifle and slung my weapon out in front of me, letting it hang free. I raised both hands, hopefully trying to show that I came in peace.
It still wasn't working. She tried to make a break for it, but I immediately moved in her way and kept her cornered. The girl was trapped in the corner.
This wasn't right. I shouldn't be doing this to a kid. No wonder she was scared of me – there was nothing more frightening than a big, evil looking soldier keeping her trapped and cornered.
"You have no reason to be scared of me; I'm not here to hurt you."
I then did the only thing possible to calm her down. I reached for my helmet locks and disengaged them, my HUD shutting off and the chin straps retracting. I lifted my helmet off and set it on the ground, and I then proceeded to pull down my face mask. Keeping both hands in the air, I looked at the girl and smiled.
"See? I'm not scary," I said, speaking in Japanese. "I'm not going to hurt you."
She looked at me with curious eyes, part of her easing up. My helmet only reinforced a faceless and emotionless robotic image that was usually associated with Commonwealth soldiers. Without it, I was a normal, nondescript, and uninspiring everyday person in bulky armor.
I walked closer, kneeling down only a foot and a half away from her, keeping my hands in the air. She was still uneasy, but compared to before, this was a huge improvement.
"Don't worry, you're safe," I said, reminding her that I came in peace. "I'm not going to hurt-"
I then felt something next to my neck. It hovered millimeters from my skin, but I could feel it as though it was in direct contact. I stopped, freezing where I was.
"Get up."
The voice was feminine, but it had a rough, harsh, and defensive tone. I slowly got to my feet, also keeping my hands in the air, just to be safe.
"Turn around."
I did as I was told. When I did, I was met with the sight of another girl. She was dressed in a red and white kimono, or some other type of Japanese clothing. She was defiantly older, and unlike the child, this one had long, silky black hair that extended past her shoulders. She had some type of classical beauty to her, but as far as I can tell, that was being pushed aside by a pair of pissed off eyes. In her hands was a sword, a katana to be politically correct, and she held it next to my neck. The manner of which she held her weapon suggested she wasn't some random civilian using whatever they could find to defend themselves – I was dealing with a potentially highly skilled individual.
This worried me in a way. At close quarters, the most anybody I've encountered in a fight knew about close quarter's battle was how to use their rifle as a club, which I am able to subdue easily.
"Speak! Who are you! What are you doing, threatening little children!"
"I'm not threatening her, I was just trying to calm her down, ma'am" I replied, explaining it as best I could. It was rather difficult to do so when she had a sword at my neck.
The swordswoman gritted her teeth, getting angrier as time passed.
"Liar! You are nothing but a common criminal, breaking into a residence and preying on small, defenseless children!"
I needed to do something. If this 'interrogation' kept up, I would end up being skewered by her sword. I quickly examined the situation. It would be risky, but then again, it could be worth doing so.
I snapped my left hand forward and grabbed the back of the katana. I then stepped back, reaching one hand back to draw my sidearm. I finished off by pushing her sword down and away from myself, and thrusting the muzzle of my sidearm in front of her face.
Her eyes looked into mines, shocked over what I had done. I had her at my mercy. I then registered what I had done – something that I neglected when I first thought of it. Technically speaking, I had eighteen 10mm hollow-point rounds in my magazine, but as of now, I have no ammo in my clip.
If this truly is 146 years in the past, this meant I can't use any amount of force on anybody – including her. I don't know the physics behind time travel and all that, but even I'm not stupid enough to know that if I do something – anything to defend myself that may result in injuring or worse, killing, another individual – I could potentially change the future.
I don't know what it would specifically change, but changing the timeline was a bad thing that I couldn't afford to do.
In the end, I was powerless. At best, I could only use my weapon to intimidate my opponent, or if I'm lucky enough to load the stun rounds for either my sidearm or rifle, I could possibly then use my weapons. For the moment, if she knew this was nothing more than a bluff, I was finished.
"Put the sword down" I calmly said to her.
Her gaze was filled with hate and defiance. Our eyes met, and I could only pray that she couldn't see through me and realize that I wasn't actually going to shoot.
"Put the sword down, ma'am," I repeated, keeping calm and trying to make myself unreadable. "I will use force, if necessary, to protect myself."
I lightly rested my finger on the trigger. If I was lucky, I could get her to put the sword down. But that was only 'if.'
She looked into my eyes, her expression then changing. It went from simple anger to delight. What would she be so happy about, unless…
She then slid her sword out from the hand holding it down, and raised it into the air. I moved back, keeping my weapon pointed at her. If this was to normally happen, I would shoot, but in this case, I had no ability to.
And she just figured that out.
The swordswoman then screamed something in Japanese, something I couldn't pick up, and then swung her katana in my direction.
The blade wasn't even close to me, but then I felt something press against my chest. I then noticed waves of air flowing around. It multiplied quickly, and before I could realize that her weapon had just pushed me back even when it wasn't close to me, my back had already touched the wall behind me and I was flying.
Actually, I was sent flying out of the damn building.
I landed somewhere down below. My armor softened the landing a bit, but I could still feel the impact. I groaned in pain as I got back up. As I did, I heard the swordswoman scream again. I saw a flash of red and white as she leapt gracefully out of the window.
She was flying straight at me.
I rolled out of the way, her sword slicing into the ground. Even if it missed me, the force of the blade still sent me flying away, again.
Christ, what was in that thing?
She continued her onslaught, much to my misfortune. Each time she swung her katana, it sent me flying. Was there some logical explanation as to why it even does that?
I had to get away from it. I got back up to my feet and ran. Actually, I only ran about a meter before she swung again and sent me flying yet again. I continued to run, but as I did, I noticed where I was. This section of Hinata Inn's exterior seemed familiar.
Of course it did. It was the area around its main entrance.
In spite of the old design of the inn, it was still a formidable structure. It was a strange feeling though, seeing it now. The last I saw of it, the entire place was being torn apart by the gunship in the midst of winder and being stormed by our squads and taking out the Bloc soldiers inside.
Now, it was a nice day outside and the building was intact and at its prime.
Déjà vu doesn't even begin to describe the feeling. Nor does it help at all when I'm trying to run away from a mad swordswoman with a katana able to direct wind and air around.
I ran for the entrance, opening the door and running inside. It was a snap decision, but it couldn't possibly be so bad. It was certainly better than running out into the rest of the world beyond the inn, with weapons and armor that hasn't even been invented yet, for all to see.
Once inside, I made for the stairs and got to the second floor. I needed to lose her. I ran through the long hallways trying to stay as far as possible, or at least move in enough of a random path so that she couldn't follow me. I then found myself on what seemed like a balcony. I slowly walked out, checking my corners and sides.
It overlooked most of the area, and interestingly, there was a round wooden tub in the center of it. Come to think about it, it wasn't much of a balcony, but something else. I walked over to the edge and looked around. To the right, it looked overtop of an outdoor hot springs.
This place actually wasn't too bad. It had a rustic, old-fashioned feel to it. I suppose it was a change of pace from the usual cold, damp, and metallic feel of the military bases. Assuming I could lay low for awhile, I might actually be able to enjoy this place.
I then felt that feeling again – the same one anybody would get when there's a sword hovering next to your neck.
"Turn around, fiend!"
She was here, even more pissed off than before. I didn't want to guess how she was able to follow me, but needless to say, I underestimated her. She now stood before me with her blade drawn and ready to kill.
There was only one thing to do.
I knocked her blade away and jumped over the balcony and onto the roof down below. I then jumped off of that and into the hot strings. Behind me were the doors that led into the building. I had to move quickly now – get inside the building and find a way to place to hunker down for a moment.
I reached for the door and quickly slid it open. I glanced behind me - the swordswoman had jumped down to resume her chase.
I snapped my head back in front and I was ready to run.
Until I noticed there was a woman right in front of me. Actually, there were two women.
The first looked about seventeen or eighteen, and had long, light brown hair, complemented by two long pieces that stood above her head like a pair of antenna. Her dark hazel eyes stared at me in absolute and utter shock. There wasn't any other way to actually describe her – she was just naturally beautiful. The other girl looked slightly older and had short grey hair, almost like a tomboy, but her buxom and curvaceous figure suggested otherwise. What made her intriguing were her eyes – how they were half closed, as though she was tired or laid back. Her peculiar eyes brought the imagery of a fox to my mind.
They stared at me, and I stared back. They were both stunningly gorgeous, the type of women I could only dream about, assuming I'm even that lucky. Had it not been for behavior modifying nanites and injections, I would have remained motionless and done nothing but stared at the beautiful pair for ages.
But because of those nanites and injections, I then realized that all they were wearing nothing but towels. Essentially, there were two gorgeous, beautiful, and naked, ladies in front of me.
The long haired girl then realized that as well. Her expression changed from shock, to confusion, and then it hit varying shades of pure, unshackled, and unrestricted anger.
"PERVERT!"
She raised her fist and promptly threw a punch straight at me. I had barely enough time to brace myself before her fist contacted against my face.
…
I remember three separate occasions where I have gotten punched, or was involved in a fistfight. First was when I was a kid, against a neighborhood bully. The next was in basic training, against another recruit. The third was in battle, when my clip ran empty and I got into a fistfight with a Bloc soldier who tried to jump me with a bayonet. All of them, I had walked out victorious with only minor injuries. They all punched hard, but I punched harder. I could always remember the amount of force they brought with them into the fight, and the sheer bedlam that developed during the struggle. There wasn't anything fanciful or poetic about a fistfight – it was about throwing as many punches and making sure as many of them hit vital areas as quick as possible.
Compared to the single punch this girl threw at me, all those, and all rules and thought regarding a fistfight meant absolutely nothing.
To say her punch was strong was a severe understatement. I had no chance at all. The punch simply knocked everything right out of me. My vision blurred out as her fist hit my face. I could barely make out the color of the sky above me, and the motion in my stomach suggested that it had sent me flying. I then landed...somewhere. I could feel warm water splash against my face and head. I must have landed in the hot springs. It was strangely comfortable, actually.
I quickly recovered and rolled out of the way just as I heard the swordswoman yell and come down on me with her blade. I got back up and tried to raise my weapon, but I got hit again – by the naked, long haired girl – and was sent flying. My back hit a wall this time, and I struggled to keep steady.
I dodged another slash from the swordswoman, and I suppose I was lucky enough to roll beneath the long haired girl's right hook. This was getting out of hand. At this rate, I'd be beaten more than a prisoner-of-war. Enough was enough – I had to get the hell out of here.
As I rolled away and tried to put some distance between myself and the two women, I reached into a pouch and pulled out a flashbang round. The grenades used in our utility launchers were also designed to work standalone as regular munitions. I pressed and held the rubber base of the round, normally where the firing pin would penetrate and both arm the grenade and fire it, and threw it. I looked away and covered my eyes and ears. As it hit the ground, it detonated with a loud explosion and flash. The two women started screaming and swearing.
I immediately ran for the door, moving as best as I could beneath the disorientation, getting into the changing rooms and out. I was lucky to have gotten away. I continued to run down another hallway running deeper into the building. I needed to lay low, and I suppose I had a greater chance of doing so by getting back into the tunnels under the building.
Moving along, I then heard yelling. The voice sounded like it belonged to the blue haired girl from earlier.
"Sempai! Sempai, there's a terrorist in the building!"
Out of a door in front of me, I saw the girl walk out. Her eyes widened in fear as she saw me coming. I stopped and looked around, trying to find another path to take, but there was none. I had to go past her. Suddenly, out of another door located off the one side in front of her, somebody else walked out.
"Shinobu, what's wrong?"
Unlike the other residents, this one was male, late teens, perhaps twenty. He was of a small frame and build, and his thick glasses suggested that he was probably weak and would be unable to hold his own. He turned around and saw me, his eyes also widening in fear. Actually, it was more like his eyes bugged out at the sight of my rifle and my armor, particularly while running towards him.
"There you are!"
From behind me, the long haired girl and the swordswoman had caught up with me. The foxy one was there as well, looking on with what appeared to be idle amusement. With them was also a pair of new girls. The first appeared to be the same age as the blue haired girl, and her dark skin suggested she was a foreigner. She was dressed in what appeared to be a Japanese schoolgirl uniform, and that would have made her look cute or potentially harmless.
That image was horribly, horribly, skewed by the enormous and sinister looking weapon she had pointed down at me.
The other girl was younger than the darker skinned girl, and her pale skin and blond hair told me she was also a foreigner, perhaps American. She held over her head an object that resembled an artifact of some sort, shaped to appear as a face. There was no conflicting image for this one – looking at her eyes, the expression on her face, and at the object she held over her head, she was simply pure evil.
"Suu, fire!"
"Roger!"
The dark skinned girl than fired her weapon, sending an energy beam down the hall. I was lucky enough to have dodged it, but the male down the hall apparently wasn't. I then got a good look at the weapon the dark skinned girl was wielding. An energy weapon? How was this possible? Energy weapons were still experimental, with probably another decade before they would become efficient enough to use in the field. How was it that this girl, over a century in the past, had a working version?
Another shot flew past me. There was no time to wonder why it was so. I need to move. I turned around and ran, straight for the blue haired girl and the male, who was getting back to his feet from a smoking crater caused by the shot that accidentally hit him. There wasn't a way to slide past the two of them, so I opted for a more direct approach.
As I neared the male, I lowed my stance and as I kept running, I ran my shoulder into his stomach, raised my stance, and rolled back over my shoulder and behind me. It shouldn't be too bad for him – he was able to survive a direct hit from an energy weapon, so in theory, he should also be able to survive behind run over like that. I continued to run.
"Ahh! Sempai!"
I couldn't tell, but the girl next to the male, 'Shinobu' from what I can hear, ran to his aid. Everybody then looked on, not sure whether to pursue me or to help their fallen resident. I took this to my advantage and made my way back to the dining room, and to the entrance. I quickly got in and slid down, making sure the back was closed, and continued to slide down to what I was hoping to be safety.
Sitting down, I rested against the wall, letting the events slide into place for me to think about. Let's see – I traveled 146 years back in time, I'm inside an inn, inhabited by at least six women and one male, with four of those six women able to cause me severe harm.
I let my head slide back against the wall. What did I ever do to get myself in this situation? This was simply, and utterly stupid.
I hit the back of my head against the wall yet again, before I realized something. I reached for my head, running my gloved fingers through my short hair. I then tried to remember as best as I could. The blue haired girl, when I saw her again in the hallway, was carrying something. I then groaned in agony.
I left my helmet up at the dining room when I took it off. Now the blue haired girl had it, and now everybody there had my helmet. The residents had a finished product comprising of technology over a century ahead of their time.
I did a quick check of my armor, and I also realized I had also dropped my sidearm, possibly when I got demolished by the two women in the bathing area. I still had my rifle at least, thanks to my rifle sling. But to also lose my sidearm…
I groaned in frustration yet again. How could I do that? I left my own equipment up there, in the hands of people who have, and never will, see it. It was a rookie mistake, and I wasn't a rookie. To think that I am considered a veteran by the soldiers I lead…
Looking around the dark hallway that I sat in, I took a moment to rest. I'll have to go back up there soon to recover it. In the meantime, I need to stop and think for a moment about all that has apparently happened.
…to say that I needed a Deus ex machina doesn't even begin to describe the level of shit I was in.