FLASHBACK

OPERATION SWORDBREAKER

3 MONTHS EARLIER

Things weren't always the same, ever since I would be the first, and last person that I would ever witness all of the events that I experienced over the years. If it wasn't the Great Decline that affected the entirety of the human population, it was certain that two organizations, lurking beneath the shadows, had been responsible for a previous war that they engaged in secret about 3 decades ago.

The reason why they chose to fight in that war was because of a single weapon capable of decimating vast arrays of armies and reanimated the victims' corpses; this would, in turn, create the Great Decline. In other words, you get infected once, and you'll die in a few seconds, and you'll instantly become a husk, smasher, or even something worse…

Ironically, this was a futile excuse for these organizations in introducing and improving technologies into the next generation. Yet, at the same time, the world would also see the reconstruction of humanity, thanks to the introduction of a new type of liquid named BluGlo.

BluGlo was a new type of chemical liquid that was invented by Dr. Vinderman in 2024, and it has been Implemented in securing humanity's future, and permanently accelerated weapons research and development in exisiting weapons systems; one of these weapons, alone, was the Type-3 Doggus, nicknamed the "Hoyoki," (looks like a bear), a state-of-the-art mech that was capable in dealing with extraterrestrial and nuclear threats from either the Federation, in case if they broke a peace treaty that was negotiated months before the reconstruction, along with numerous factions that opposed us and the Federation.

Before explaining on what happened on that day, July 20th, my squad, Sasha Alexeev, Chun-hei Haneul, and Anthony Williams, and I, were tasked in eliminating a threat that had long decimated the world for a long time. Originally, it was a prehistoric amphibian reptile, but thanks to both Atlas and the Federation, they unknowingly woke up the animal, thanks to its volatile reactor being activated and the genetic codes provided by the chemical weapons, and it allowed the animal to mutate into what now called: Cattus. In other words, we had a real-life Godzilla that we'd never see coming at all.

Almost everybody of the crew were killed when each of us were sent to different locations in acquiring the data that was needed to activate the beacon alone, but I don't want to talk about it, considering that I'll focus on the battle, itself.

I remembered the four of us being at a hangar that housed the Type-3 Doggus in Mount Shasta, making final preparations in killing Cattus. According to the intel that they gave to us, we were informed that the sea monster would head towards San Francisco, and supposedly, kill off the last of his kind, since we were sent in an earlier operation in killing off a female counterpart.

As I started to look at the Type-3, I thought to myself, 'Look at how huge that thing is! Are we sure that we'll beat Cattus, alone?'

Then, I looked around the hangar for another while, and looked at Sasha, who was my closest friend and ally, thinking if we were going to succeed in killing off the last of Cattus' kind.

"What's wrong," asked Sasha as he looked at the Type-3, "Is there anything wrong happening beside what we're about to do?"

"No," I replied, "It's not because of what we're about to do."

"Then, what is it?" asked Chun-hei.

As I watched the maintenance crew arm up the Doggus, I phased out, thinking about killing off the female Cattus. Every time, when I think about it, all I could feel inside was nothing but pure sadness inside, since the mother were taking care of its children from us; and when we killed it, that made me unstable, and cried when I returned to base. It reminds me of an earlier time, when my mother and I were sent to a prison camp by one of the Federation guards; I could remember the screams of my mother, begging the soldiers to not kill her children. That's how it was in Southern Florida, where I was raised for most of my life.

"Jennifer," said Sasha, "Jennifer!"

I suddenly looked around the hangar, since he placed his arm over my right eye.

"I know," I said, "We need to do this."

I climbed onboard the Type-3 along with my crew. As I did so, I could see dozens of people saluting and cheering at us, for that, the operation was officially going to happen. Final preparations were being made, as Sasha made sure that all hydraulics, weapons, and defense systems were working, as I started powering up the rocket propulsion systems that came inside the engine compartment.

"People," said the commander, "You may already know that we're sailing at a shitstorm; but I wanted to say those who have done tremendous work in making this happen, thank you. Now, let's finish what we've started, and make it back home!"

After the commander's speech, mission control finalized the countdown prep and wished us the best, as the Type-3 took off.

A few minutes had passed once we gained altitude over the distant sky, and already, a flight of F-35s flew right beside us at 18,000 ft., as they escorted us to San Fran, and made sure that the Federation would not do anything stupid.

We remained in the air for nearly an hour, as the four of us looked at the clear skies, along with a batch of clouds that covered the Sierra Nevada. Although it really was a beauty seeing almost what was ahead of others, I couldn't think about anything else but Operation Swordbreaker, along with the children from the female Cattus, who were kept inside a compartment room inside, and were well-fed and not aware of what was to happen.

By the time we arrived at San Francisco, it was a huge mess from the beginning to end, as gunshots were fired upon Cattus, along with a couple of Federation forces, who appeared to go rouge after something went awfully wrong. Perhaps that might've been the wrong orders, or if there was something suspicious happening inside the war room.

"Is there anything wrong, Jennifer?" asked Chun-hei.

"No," I replied, "Why?"
"Just making sure, now that were in the Bay Area."

"All right, everyone," I said, "There's that son of a bitch that's attacking San Francisco right now. Remember everything that we learned during those months, and we got this!"

Regardless, we entered into battle, while the Cattus was on its rampage across the Bay Area, as we launched a barrage of missiles that directly hit parts of its arms and abdomen, and kept on the offensive until it retaliated by dealing a serious amounts of damage all across the hydraulics system; and for us, well, the sheer impact nearly knocked me out, since I was the closest than the others. A few minutes had later passed, and I wondered where was everybody at, better yet, if we already won or not.

"Someone, wake her up!" said Sasha in the background. I woke up to see a trashed-up cockpit, and everyone doing their part to fight off the reptilian beast before it would deal a death blow to all of us by breaching into the cockpit, and devour all of us.

"Anthony," I said, "Anthony, is that you?"

"Good," said Anthony as he got me up, "Come on, Jen! You've been out cold for a while! We need you back in the game and alive!"

"We can't risk losing you and the city!" said Chun-hei while controlling the weapons systems, "Go and head to the maintenance room to initiate a self-repair protocol. Go!"

I went to the emergency room as they requested, while Cattus was about a few inches away from breaching into the cockpit. I later arrived at the maintenance room, only to see that the entire mech to look like hammered shit, thanks to the loss of the left arm, and additional cosmetic damage that was done, while the Financial District took heavy damage.

Unknowingly, I saw two jets, both of which beared the Federation livery, streak beside me, and fire off a few missiles at one of the tanks, that beared Atlas markings, right before it would fly off into the distant thunder, and never return.

I quickly looked around at the hatch to find an internal computer that thankfully, wasn't destroyed; though, I thought that it was severely damaged thanks to the constant force that was done. It took about a few minutes to access its self-repair protocol, and reboot the components for Doggus to fight once again.

Eventually, the trio regained control, and threw him off before falling to the ground and grabbing the energy that was stored inside the Waterton Energy Facility. Right around the lake, a sword suddenly appeared within the energy storage, and grabbed it by the left arm

Upon grabbing it, all four of us noticed that the sword started to glow all over, once it was removed. Without hesitating if the sword was heavily defective, we decided that it was time to end all this by dealing the final blow.

In those final moments, the male Cattus looked at Doggus directly in the eye, as it could hear the cries from the offsprings, and was instantly killed by the sheer impact of the sword being directed towards the eye.

Knowing that the threat had officially ended, we all celebrated the victory, while the Type-3 stood there, watching over the distance across the Bay Area as it burned and exploded across the city.

However, that victory was short-lived, as a new conflict was about to start, while seeing the two aforementioned Federation jets return to San Francisco, along with an amphibious fleet that are already staging an operation to retake San Francisco.

Seeming that we had no choice, Chun-hei suggested that we leave the atmosphere, fearing that a nuclear exchange could happen at any time. And it was the best decision we made, in order to leave back all the madness that was happening below the surface.

That would also become the last transmission that I gave to mission control…

"This is Lieutenant Hawkins," I said while observing the planet from above, "how do you copy, over?"

"This is Mission Control;" said the director, "We can read you loud and clear, Lieutenant."

"How's the Bay Area looking?"

"Not good. Much of the Bay Area's taking heavy damage thanks to the Federation and Atlas."

"Say again, Command. We're losing your signal, over."

"The Federation broke the peace deal, and all Atlas assets are initiating Operation Bookshelf to defend the Bay Area. We need you on the ground immediately. I repeat. We need you to-"

"Negative. Hydraulics have taken heavy damage, along with the defense systems. Fortunately, the thrusters are still online, albeit severely damaged."

"Where are you and your crew heading to, over?"

"Parts unknown, we may head for the moon waiting for our lives to end or orbit across the earth or something. However, all I can say is that we've disturbed something that was hidden for too long, and it may pose a threat to the earth; immediate action may be needed to analyze the energy from the Six-Sided Event that happened back in 2004 in Germany. You need to heed the Doctor's warning over the damage that we've caused as a result."

"All of you must prepare for the future, because not only we're about to enter a new age, but we must unite together as one, and face off a greater threat that's been long dormant for so long. Singularity, out."