"04:15, Guyana-Brazil border region. No alarm sounded, crossing appears successful, heading to primary objective." The colonel whispered to his comrades, advancing through the jungle. He stowed his log book, barely being able to see in the dark brush of the South American terrain.
They had no real idea on where to head, the railroad they were looking for was completely covered by trees, not allowing for any air recon to get through. The group's radio operator, a Greenlandic man named Frederik, radioed in their situation.
The advance through the jungle was sluggish, muddy, and arduous. The darkness and constant sounds from birds and animals, causing everyone to jump, wasn't helping matters. Suddenly, a horn sounded.
"Down, now!" Colonel Gottlieb whispered, pulling the nearest soldier down into the short ferns with him. Nobody could see it, but the thunder of the train was unmistakable. "Closer than we thought. If we hurry, we can try to still catch it."
A few huffed, and reluctantly started jogging along the track. A train station was spotted a few hundred feet ahead, dimly illuminated, barely showing the figures wearing the headlamps. "Recon?" Gottlieb said into his radio.
The recon team answered promptly. "Language is Guyanese Creole, talking about how they're moving it on to another station."
The reconnaissance teams were always their saving grace. Six people, operating in groups of two, were what would make or break any operation. 'How can you shoot at something you can't see?' Is what Gottlieb always had stated, regarding their importance.
The few workers retreated back into the room inside the small station, creating the perfect opening. One of the group's riflemen, Marzban, slid open the side of an empty car. The darkness made getting in difficult, but no injuries more severe than a bruised knee occurred. Soon, the train began moving again.
The next stop was the one of interest. The group confirmed the loading of something, but couldn't determine what it was. "Call it." Said Gottlieb to Frederik. Within 20 minutes, eight UH-1 Iroquois "Huey" were descending on the cargo station.
Spotlights swarmed the concrete platform, and speakers blaring warnings clouded the rising sun with fleeing birds. Ropes dropped from the helicopters, followed by troops sliding down. Gottlieb's section jumped out from the car, joining the rest.
No weapons were on site, and no resistance was put up. "Well, let's see what we've got." Gottlieb said, walking towards some boxes.
He took a crowbar from his kit to remove the nails on the top. "Agh." He said boringly. "Empty, damn."
This continued for all of the boxes. Absolutely no trace of anything was found. Gottlieb was furious, nearly ruining the engine of an Iroquois with a rock. He looked despondently over the edge of the train platform, when Marzban approached him. He sat down with him, pushing his Kalashnikov to the side.
"I'm upset, too. But we don't have much time before they destroy or hide whatever is going on here." Marzban said, his gaze being met by the side of Gottlieb's head.
Marzban sighed, picked up his rifle, and left. Eli, a former Rhodesian SAS member, decided to try his luck. The moment he sat down, a small smile formed on Gottlieb's face. "Hey… you know how to fly a helicopter." He said.
Eli was unsettled by this, not having flown in decades. "Why?"
Marzban lightly set the stock of his AK on Eli's black beret. "You know the answer, let's find these ashkhas."
After much coercing, Eli complied. The group approached the Huey, with Gottlieb overriding as the highest rank present. Gottlieb pushed the .50 caliber machine gun out of the way as he climbed in, while Eli refreshed his memory regarding the controls.
"Okay… this thing moves here, right?" Eli moved a large switch on its side. A clunking noise came from the engine, followed by the gentle start of the rotors. "Yup." Soon enough, they lifted off.
The gunship weaved through the valleys of Guyana, following the rail lines that lay at the lowest elevations. Only ten miles in, three trucks were spotted on the rails, prompting a landing.
From the moment they established a consistent sightline, they were fired upon. The rounds weren't anything more than an inconvenience to the thick armor, and the section was more than prepared for this.
Hans, the one who made the amount of German jokes among his comrades skyrocket, returned fire from the door mounted machine gun. The trucks didn't stop, and no help was coming for either side.
Eventually, Hans was able to target in the tires of the trucks, which stopped all three. This led to the prompt surrender of the opposition, considering they fielded much more firepower.
Eli dropped off the group, and ascended once more due to the lack of a good landing zone. The troops on the ground slowly approached. "Wachsam sein, wachsam sein." Hans repeated to himself, quietly.
The Guyanese didn't resist being detained, and the search of the trucks began. The tarps on the trucks were covering a thick sheet of black steel, riddled with dents from bullets. A vent was on the top of all of them, loosely held together with a few screws.
Gottlieb pried open the vent with a crowbar. A beeping sound emanated from within, muffled by another layer of metal. The container was attached to a palette carried by rope, then hung from the cargo hooks of the helicopter.
They landed at a UN observer post in the Dominican Republic, an organized area compared to the chaotic nearby city of Santo Domingo. The black box stirred much attention, but was quickly whisked away for dismantling.
After many hours of cutting with acetylene torches, the technicians were able to get in. The paneling fell, slamming into the concrete floor of the garage. A silver object, with various dark colors covering it was revealed. Seven red dots flashed, with following beeping.
"The hell am I looking at?" Marzban asked, not so subtly loading a round into his rifle. The figure began moving, and stepped into the light. It continued advancing, albeit very slowly. He swung his AKM to meet this. "Freeze!"
To everyone's surprise, it stopped. It beeped some more, and gave a lazy salute with its right arm. "What do we do with it?" Marzban whispered, reverberating off the walls. "What's it made of?"
"We don't have the equipment at the moment, but we could hit it with something and test how similar metals react." A technician responded.
The Registeel continued to advance, causing Marzban to panic and fire. The round was lodged into its shoulder, but the metal popped back out and sent the bullet back at him. "Oh."
Gottlieb fired his revolver at it, getting the same result. The Registeel beeped, but in an almost laughing fashion. He gave it a smack resulting in him reeling back in pain. "It seems to be some type of simple AI, maybe." Marzban commented, still shaken.
The group agreed to turn it over for dismantling and further research. Frederik was curious, and got permission to return the next day.
The mechanics found no power system, and by extension, no power switch. Frederik was examining it, hoping to find something, anything. As soon as the acetylene torches hit it however, the Registeel grabbed Frederik's weapon. It shot one of the torches, with surgical precision.
A hot, but not high force explosion ripped through the garage. Nobody was hurt beyond a few burns, but the Registeel stood defiant, free from even a scratch. Its potential was realized.
Another day had passed. The Registeel had exhibited no aggressive behavior, or anything at all. It was heavily scrutinized, but nothing conclusive came up. The consensus was it was a highly experimental robot, with superb targeting AI.
A Russian military attaché requested to compete Russia's own targeting system versus the Registeel. The Russian program was hooked up to a robotic arm wielding an M1911 pistol. The Registeel was given the same weapon.
Nobody agreed on whether the Registeel could actually understand speech, or if it had a way of inferring. The objective was to shoot five rounds in a perfect circle on a simple black and white target.
The Registeel completed the task perfectly, in only one and a half seconds. The Russian software also did it flawlessly, but needed fifteen seconds. The result was clear.
Nothing happened for a few days, until news of some militias operating near Juba, South Sudan. Usually, this was just another piece of paper in the massive file on that unstable region, but the local commanders jumped on this as an opportunity for field testing of the Registeel.
The Huey touched down in Juba International Airport early in the morning. "Thought I'd never be in this neck of the woods again, eh?" Eli said as he shut down the engine.
The helicopters silence gave way to shouting and nearby gunfire. They had no real objective besides keeping the peace, so they began on foot towards the commotion.
They identified the area the militia seemed to be holding. They waited, hoping to draw them out, but the Registeel had a different idea. It walked out from the cover of the tightly packed houses, and into the alley.
Bullets from the technical simply bounced off, but the larger rounds were stressing the Registeel quite heavily. Nevertheless, it was able to conjure a zap cannon that send the two trucks a few feet into the air, and severely wounded the operators.
"Well, seems we got a use for you." Gottlieb said.