CHAPTER 2
Somewhere, something has woken up.
"COMMANDER MAULDER-0021-C IS ONLINE", informed the commander to Central Consciousness, located somewhere below the metallic surface of Core Prime.
Core Prime... The homeworld of the huge Core Empire. A ball of metal, pollution and oil, hovering in the darkness of space, reflecting the light that it's sun, a white dwarf, casted upon it's titanium hills and silicon valleys.
Maulder-0021-C, located inside a ship in orbit of Core Prime, waited for Central Consciousness' next directions.
'Proceed with mission', came the response.
He did just that.
A thousand small ships carrying 30 Core commanders including Maulder rocketed toward a small star, thousands of light-years away. They entered Hyperspace, and were gone.
"APPROXIMATE ETA IS 24 HOURS", informed Commander XD21, the main commander of the whole operation.
Every other commander acknowledged the report with cold precision.
Maulder-0021-C was no exception. He was a rare kind of commander, his mind pattern was taken from a great Arm rather than Core commander.
Shortly before Arm forces conquered planet Eugenia, the planet Brian Maulder has failed to conquer without help, Core units located a few bone fragments of Maulder that miraculously survived the nuclear fire in which he went down, taking 40 excellent Core troops with him in a final gesture of hostility.
Using a few moderately damaged cells from the bone tissue samples, the Core were able to clone Brian Moulder, then pattern his mind into that of a commander again, but this time he will fight for the Core. This battle was going to be the first battle of Maulder-0021-C, the latest Core Maulder version.
In the oncoming assault on the desert planet, Maulder-0021-C was personally in charge of taking out a small secondary base that featured unusually big Arm cloning vats. These buildings were always a top priority for the Core to destroy, as it was the most obvious weakness of Arm.
They were still dependant on organic, mortal bodies, whether Core have moved long since past that stage.
Maulder-0021-C was lying in the hangar compartment, along with some support units, including two constructors and minor defense units. Quite enough to repel early raidings, trying to kill off the Core commander before he build strong enough defenses - a favourite Arm tactic.
Another favourite Arm tactic was to mimic Core military unit designs. For nearly every type of unit at Core's disposal, the Arm had a similar counterpart, often with slightly superior characteristics.
What the Arm DIDN'T have, is patience, logic, and firepower. Core, on the other hand, had all three of these in abundance.
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Moulder148 was slightly irritated, as the request to route more metal to his Nano-systems was denied.
"But why? All metal deposits were taken by metal extractors for YEARS now, so building my own extractors is not an option! How can I generate enough metal to build a freaking army when you gave me only THREE extractors???", he flared at Denton.
"I'm sorry, mister nano-stall", Denton1 mocked in return, "But it's not my call. I'm not commanding the resources of the WHOLE planet, you know".
"But there are at LEAST 20 more extractors in my vicinity god dammit! It's YOUR area of jurisdiction! Why can't you route more metal to my dried-out systems? I can't depend entirely on scarce metal-rich desert rocks for constructing fortifications, you know!".
It was simply ridiculous!!!
"Sorry kid, those are top commander Buckman's orders, he told me to use most of extractors availible to me to build-up defenses right here, in the base. And don't even THINK of questioning his orders! If you think I'm scary, you REALLY don't want to meet him! Now get outta my viewscreen! I got other bussiness to attend to!". He flipped a switch, and Moulder148 watched his ugly face dissapear.
Moulder sighed.
He had 20 hours left to build some serious army here. Where the heck was he going to take all the needed metal from!?!
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"ATTENTION ALL CORE MILITARY UNITS. ARM INTERCEPTORS DETECTED EN ROUTE TO OUR SQUADRON. WE CANNOT AVOID CONFRONTATION. THIS UNEXPECTED ENGAGEMENT MAY DELAY OUR ARRIVAL TO THE TARGET PLANET, KNOWN BY IT'S ARM NAME, ARAFON-XQ7. PREPARE YOUR UNSHIELDED SYSTEMS FOR SHARP MANEUVERING", boomed the voice of Commander XD21, the general of this operation.
Maulder-0021-C aknowledged the order, and readied his metallic body for high-G turns and twists. He could see through the commander's top priority information comm-link that their squadron's escorts have already dropped out of formation and headed toward the Arm vessels. The rest of the squadron continued on it's way like nothing happened.
A few minutes later, he could detect small dots of bright light far away, as their escorts engaged the Arm Freedom Fighters, modified to alow space flight and outfitted with hyperdrive.
They were no match in any way for the Core escorts, genuine Iron Angel space superiority fighters, built for the purpose of space-fighting from start.
But there were many Arm fighters out there, and shortly all four Angels were burning, their silicon brains exposed to the deadly void of hyperspace, that was so much like normal space in many ways.
The Arm small fighters swarmed toward the bulk of Core ships, launching missiles as they approached.
Core defensive laser turrets kicked in, destroying some of the missiles en route, while dodging others in enormous maneuvers of hundreds of G's acceleration. If the Core ship's occupants were organic beings, they woud've been smashed into tiny bits of goo a long time ago.
But they were pure machines, very durable, capable of surviving in nearly any enviromental conditions.
Unfortunately (for the Core), the Arm Alliance somehow developed devices that counter the deadly effects of inertia on soft organic matter, and the Arm fighters were now following the Core bulkier vessels in their maneuvers, spitting out antimatter missiles and laser blasts as they went.
One of the smaller Core ships, fortunately one that not contained a commander at all, was hit by a pair of missiles, the Heavy Armor generators failed, and the ship exploded brightly, illuminating the other, desparately weaving ships.
But Arm fighters suffered more casualties, as the heavy laser batteries stroke down their fighters one by one, reducing their numbers to a fraction of what they originally were.
Eventually, the remaining Arm forces disengaged, leaving a few damaged Core transports behind without finishing the job they started. The ships will be repaired in no time, as molecular nano-bots will slip in between the cracks in the ship's hull and systems, creating new layers of metal, plastic, silicon, and delicate electronics.
The Core forces continued their advance, confident in their ability to overwhelm any threat.
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The burning desert was completely devoid of anything but sand. Sand was all that was visible in every direction, except for a medium-sized reddish rock, lying near the foundation of a sand dune.
Suddenly, from behind that same dune, a huge humanoid shape appeared. It pointed a barrel mounted on its left arm towards the rock, and a green beam shot out of the gun like a spear, earning the device the name "nano-lance" on some Arm planets.
The beam stroke home, disintegrating the rock into its component materials, filtering out any non-useful waste.
Maulder148 sighed.
'Here goes the last rock in the proximity', he thought. Well, it was the only remaining rock the air patrols he sent earlier have detected. Perhaps there were more, lying around somewhere, though he doubted it.
'Well, Maulder, time for your plan!', he thought to himself, heading back for the small base he managed to construct until now.
He arrived after 2 minutes, and started constructing Solar Plants.
A very vast array of solar plants.
He proceeded to build fusion plants, since even that much solar plants, which were twice as effective under such a burning sun, weren't enough. After 3 hours he had a very serious electricity network, though it should've taken him a third of this time, if he had enough metal at his disposal.
'Now, for phase 2!', he thought.
He started to construct infinite number of Metal Makers, which could generate a steady flow of metal, but with huge energy consumption. The efficiensy of these devices, who were usually used only in emergency situations such as this, was less than perfect indeed...
When he felt that the metal flow increased to a sufficient level to start building some serious guns, satisfaction coursed through his veins.
'For starters, let's build a Vehicle Plant', he thought.
He proceeded to work on his base, and with that much metal flowing in, it was a pleasure!
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"ATTENTION ALL CORE MILITARY UNITS!", sounded the voice of XD21 in every commander's head. "WE ARE NOW WITHIN 20 MINUTES OF THE TARGET PLANET. REVIEW YOUR OBJECTIVES AND YOUR PLANNED STRATEGY. YOU ARE THE BEST OF CORE FORCES. CENTRAL CONSCIOUSNESS IS COUNTING ON YOU TO BRING PEACE TO THE GALAXY. IT IS YOUR DUTY TO ELIMINATE THE THREAT KNOWN AS THE ARM ALLIANCE, AND TO SECURE CENTRAL CONSCIOUSNESS' ETERNAL EXISTENCE. XD21 WISH YOU ALL GOOD LUCK. XD21 OUT".
If an Arm commander could hear these words, he would've been surprised by XD21's show of individuality and friendship when he wished good luck to his squadmates. But there was nothing surprising about it at all.
While Arm citizens and soldiers usually considered Core as thinking machines, and Central Consciousness as an advanced AI, it was far from the truth.
These were people, just like the Arm, only they were imprisoned in metallic, rather than flesh, bodies. Sure, they were a little devoid of emotions - after all, they did not have any hormones to cloud their judgment - but they were human nevertheless.
And just like Arm, they only fought for survival...
Maulder-0021-C's dropship rocketed through the upper atmosphere, toward its calculated target.
With a shrieking sound of protesting metal, the dropship slammed into the lower, denser layers of the planet's nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere.
So far, everything went as Maulder-0021-C planned...
The dropship was by now concealed entirely by a fireball, trailing thick black smoke. The temperature inside the dropship almost reached boiling point, but Maulder-0021-C didn't care, nor did it matter for any other Core unit in the dropship.
A few minutes later, the commander was already on ground, and nanolathing as fast as he could, while his support units patrolled the immediate area around his base. Maulder-0021-C started with a few Solar Plants, which appeared to be very effective under the hot desert son, though Core have already conquered hotter planets than this. He sent a Weasel scout vehicle to find any metal deposits. And sure enough, it did.
But they were already taken.
Maulder-0021-C could've personally come over and capture the enemy extractors with ease, but he was not going to waste valuable time capturing buildings that could be easily destroyed while he could use his time for strengthening his army.
"DESTROY ENEMY EXTRACTOR UNIT", he gave the order. Although the Weasel was merely a scouting vehicle and was very lightly armed, the paper-thin titanium covering of the enemy extractor's exposed infrastructure was no match for the beam of light, concentrated into a tiny dot, that burned through it in a few quick pulses, destroying it with a small explosion...
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A few dozen kilometers from there, Maulder148 sensed the destruction of a metal extractor.
One of his own, 3 extractors!
He wasn't surprised of course. Denton1 checked in with Maulder148 a few minutes ago, and informed of the Core's arrival. They came a bit later than Arm Intelligence predicted, but they still came in big numbers. Denton told him the anticipated landing spot of the commander that he, Maulder148, will have to face, then proceeded to direct other operations against the Core.
But now Maulder148 knew the location of the enemy commander even more accurately, as a result of the destruction of his extractor...
He wanted to deal with the annoyance as quickly as possible, and then perhaps proceed to reinforce other areas on the planet.
He ordered his squadron of Brawler gunships to take off, and head south-west in search of the enemy commander...
...