Zoids: Ashes and Dust
The battle is over. Praetor III stands surveying the battlefield, watching the smoke curl from shell-craters, rising to obscure the sight of smashed Zoid warriors lying strewn around the battlefield like captured pieces in a wargame between aristocratic ancients. The sight is a melancholy one, even though this time, in name at least, his side has won the engagement against the Reds. This is not the first battle that Praetor III has seen, nor does it stand to be the last, for a Zoid, as he well knows, fights until he can fight no more, until every atom in his metal body is smashed into oblivion, whose sacred kiss many perhaps long for, though they would never admit to so doing. On his chest is emblazoned the sacred seal of his allegiance: to the Blue forces of Zoidstar, the original and pure Zoids, a fact on which they pride themselves. Their zeal and honour are unmatched, and they do not bend in the face of their enemies' increasingly vicious bids for control of the entire planet of Zoidstar. Once the Zoids captured other planets, other stars: now, having reduced those planets and stars, and all life in them, to ashes and dust, they have turned their infinite talents for destruction, unmatched in the galaxy, inward, and now fight amongst each other in a struggle grown increasingly meaningless, and whose purpose now has simply become to perpetuate itself, to survive, too fight, to win, to conquer, and then to fight again. A Zoid is never short of enemies, a fact upon which Praetor III has often mulled over in his rare moments of reflection. He tries to recall how many battles he has survived, and finds that he cannot remember the number. He is simply here, now, and that is all that there is to it. Zoidarayan philosophy is not like the philosophies of other cultures: if it was once, it is no longer. All that there is to fight over now is ashes and dust.
Praetor III slowly manoeuvres his vast metal Trooperzoid and turns back towards the objective which they have been sent to secure, an objective which has caused much destruction and the demise of some of their finest comrades today. A Zoid and his pilot, in truth, are not separate entities: they are one and the same, their consciousness linked in an act of sacred symbiosis, of holy fusion. The death of a machine and pilot is one event: if one dies, then so will the other. The sacrifices that he has seen here today have left a feeling like acid being slowly poured into the metal chambers of Praetor III's heart: he, like many of his colleagues, nonetheless feels fortunate to be alive himself, though this feeling is clouded with a certain guilt at having survived the conflict that has left so many others lying broken upon the field of battle.
Praetor III begins to make his way towards the summit of the crag which overlooks the the Sea of Tears, one of many dead bodies of water on Zoidstar which have been reborn as theatres of brutal, almost unbelievably violent conflict. No-one in those long-ago years could have predicted such awful carnage as there is now, a conflict which forms the central part of life on the planet in these latter days. The crag gives its occupier a panoramic view over the rest of the desert, and is hence of crucial strategic importance. The sands all around are encrusted with the charred and rusted corpses of Zoids which have fought over this spot for the past weeks, months and years. All of them, once proud warriors, are just so much junk now, so much scrap metal, waiting perhaps for the Scavenger Zoid to take them away and rebuild them over the months to come. On Zoidstar, even the dead do not rest.
Now Praetor III and his colleagues stand at the top of the crag. One of his fellows, the other Trooperzoid in the taskforce, turns to him, his cannon levelled and ready for any renewal of hostilities by the beaten Reds. A battle won is no cause for complacency, and the Zoids, if they celebrate victory at all, do so in a very different way to most races. The Trooper looks at him and its words resound inside Praetor III's comlink system. "So we have won another engagement, my esteemed colleague. We must now secure the area. With victory come only new obligations."
Praetor III nods in agreement as he mulls over the Trooper's words. The Zoid is an old battle-friend of his: they have fought together for many years. "Your words are true, comrade. We must hasten to lock down all surrounding co-ordinates and prepare for counter-attack."
A Terrazoid scout which has been flying high above them on reconnaissance duty suddenly wheels, shrieking, through the air overhead. "Counter-attack imminent!" it screams. "Take immediate defensive action!" The other Zoids respond, swivelling their various weapons, laser-cannon, rocket-launchers and missile-packs, in the direction of the approaching foe.
The battlegroup now stand and listen, waiting for the onslaught to begin. The solar winds whine like the scream of a thousand lost souls through the pale desert waste that seemingly peters out into nothing some thousand yards beyond the limits of the naked eye. Above the static crackle of the radiation-heavy winds, Praetor III knows, he will soon hear the all-too-familiar sounds of a Red Zoid attack: the scream of alloy-metal wings, the shriek of laser-cannon, the roar of air-to-ground missiles, as the foe bears down upon them. But he and his comrades are ready. Nothing has destroyed him yet, and, he vows, nothing will destroy him today, though a fleet of the enemy should appear. Already, he can see the tell-tale blips on his liquid display screen: they are now within a fifteen hundred yard radius, and closing rapidly. His state-of the-art systems track the attackers with consummate ease. When they come, they will find him and the others waiting. Beside him the others too show signs that they have detected the approach of the Red counter-attack. They stand ready, with the same abhuman patience that has ensured their survival in countless past battles: two Tyrannozoids, veterans from the war's old days, the other Trooperzoid and Praetor III's own Zoid of the same type, a Stegazoid, a Brontozoid, and a Zillon, the latter an upgrade of the Trooper, rolled out only very recently, though its pilot is a veteran himself and has piloted several other Zoids in his past. Above them in the sky, just out of range of visibility above the boiling clouds that obscure it from their vision, wheels the Terrazoid scout who alerted them of the attack, and his mate. Watching. Waiting. All of them are ready for danger.
Praetor III watches the blips as they edge ever closer into the centre of his screen. Flashing lights ripple up and down the inside of his cockpit; bleeps and chirps resonate from within the animate heart of his machine. He is in a womb of Zoidaryan metal, the safest place to be on this now-desolate planet, yet he knows from experience that even this is a fragile, precarious situation, that he could be smashed brutally out of it at any moment, torn free by the slash of a metal claw or ripped asunder by a lethal blast of laser fire. The security he feels is only as real as his ability to defend himself: a fact stated in the Third Book of The Warrior, the online manual that every soldier in the Blue Army possesses and knows by heart.
"Five hundred yards and closing", the message runs around the lines of communication between the seven ground-based Zoids and the two flyers. "Prepare for long-range defensive fire".
The confirmation comes back. "Order confirmed. Target confirmed. Proceeding to implement command sequence." A series of electronic chirrups comes from the complex banks of machinery beside Praetor III. He follows the commander's order with a thought: buttons and touchpads are pressed by cold, yet feeling fingers, and rows of sigils and symbols flash across the screen before his eyes. His cockpit cameras tell him that his long-range back-mounted cannon are now raised and primed for attack. There is a sudden great roar and vibrations shake the Zoid as its cannon open fire on their attackers. He can see them clearly on his screen now: three Terrareds, renegade versions of his own flying allies, providing a shock-force for a ground-based follow-up attack composed of four Hellrunners, fast sprinting Zoids carrying lethal back-mounted heavy cannon, and who strike at great speed, relying on these two twin factors to force a hole in an enemy front. Behind them comes a large squadron of other, slower-moving Zoids: a force of Slitherzoids, a slow-moving but heavily-armed attack Zoid, and a rearguard of Tarantulons, renegade Spiderzoids whose unique scuttling attack is feared by those who have had the misfortune to face them in open combat. Praetor III and his comrades are silent, stoical. The force ranged against them is huge: alarmingly so. None of them had expected the Reds to counterattack with such rapidity and with a force of such size. Praetor III watches his screen as it automatically proceeds to calculate his group's survival chances. Thirty per cent, twenty per cent, ten... the figure dwindles rapidly as each new red speck comes into view on the screen.
"Long-range attack result confirmation:" comes the transmission. "Attack failed. Adjust range accordingly." Praetor III acknowledges the Zillon's directions and sends out a thought-order to his systems, which adjust themselves automatically, in one smooth, fluid motion. "Try again. Long-range defensive fire: issue second round."
"Systems adjusted. Proceeding." Praetor III acknowledges the command and readies his machine to fire another round. The cannons reload and the weapons systems are preparing to fire when another order cuts through on the com-link. "Wait. They are diverging... Enemy attack breaking off... Hold that order. I repeat, check that last order. The target is breaking off its attack!"
Praetor III stares keenly at his screen. So it is true! The attacking Red army is bypassing them, veering off to the south! He sends back a transmission. "Noting that, Blue Leader. Target is moving off." He switches down his weapons systems, which send out a faint hum as they gear down towards neutral. A sensation passes through his organo-alloy fibres as he watches the red blips dwindle into insignificance on his vid-screen, a sensation that another being might perhaps term relief. A thousand yards, fifteen hundred, two thousand...before long the enemy are gone, out of combat range. The Blue force stands easy as their Zillon commander's voice comes loud and clear over the com-link system: "Stand down, all taskforce units. Repeat, stand down, all taskforce units. Threat no longer active. Repeat, threat no longer active."
Praetor III looks out over the battlefield, reflecting on how he has once again, mysteriously, been spared. Why have the enemy broken off their attack? Perhaps they have been ordered to attack a fresh objective, or perhaps they simply believe the crag to be not worth taking. But whatever the reason, he is grateful for this unexpected stroke of good fortune. Fate often takes strange turns here on Zoidstar, once a prosperous planet, now a perpetual theatre for a struggle grown increasingly meaningless, and whose purpose now has simply become to perpetuate itself, to survive, to fight, to win - to conquer, and then fight again. While a Zoid is never short of enemies, a fact which Praetor III has often mulled over in his rare moments of reflection, he and his comrades-in-arms have somehow survived, have come through- for today, at least. He tries to recall how many battles he has survived, and finds that he cannot remember. He is simply here, now, and that is all that there is to it. Zoidaryan philosophy is not like the philosophies of other cultures: if it was once, it is no longer. All that there is to fight over now, all that lies out there in the desert beyond, is ashes and dust.