"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when we are far away, we must make the enemy believe we are near." - Sun Tzu, The Art of Warfare
"The Lander scum think themselves invulnerable within their cities. Ha! We will show them the error of their ways, my brothers, starting today. There is more than one way to fight a war..." - General Crestor of the Human Dominance Coalition
Chapter 3: Contaminate
June 1st, 2955
2:00 p.m.
New Chicago Financial District
This was not one of M-O's best days. Earlier, he had been attending to his regular cleaning duties, safe in one of the high-rise apartments in the center of New Chicago. Now, he was trying to avoid being trampled as hundreds of people were trying to evacuate the building. It didn't help that the building violently shook from time to time, and nearly caused several civilians to crush M-O beneath their body weight. Suddenly, M-O felt himself being lifted off the ground. The cleaner bot attempted to free himself from whoever was holding him, but the effort was in vain. To M-O's relief, the person carrying him was one of the building's security guards. With an expression of concern on his face, the lone security guard lowered the cleaning bot.
"There you are, M-O. You need to get out of here; from what I hear, there's terrorists on the lower levels! The military will be here soon, but I need to get you to the roof ASAP! Hold onto my backpack, and we'll be fine!", the guard shouted over the chaos of the crowd.
M-O warbled in acquiescence. Despite the disheveled and unfamiliar features of the Lander security guard, the microbe obliterator was confident that he was in capable hands. As they ascended, M-O tried hard to suppress the multiple questions floating around in his head. Who were these terrorists? Why were they attacking? How did they manage to strike this deep within the city? All the answers eluded him. Little did MO know that the answers were only a few floors below him...
Robert Thax leveled his weapon at the cowering civilians that lay before him. Infiltrating New Chicago was the easy part of the plan-no one could really tell who they were with the civilian clothes they were wearing. Their body armor and weapons had been taken from the building's security personnel, and now they were holding hostages. These people were the scum his commanders had been talking about since his first days of training. These were the corrupt worms that reveled in their wealth while many were left to rot in the outer limits of the city. These were monsters that used machines to enforce their iron-fisted rule. But despite all of the atrocities these people had supposedly committed, the young soldier did not feel hatred towards them. As a soldier of the Human Dominance Coalition, he was constantly drilled to hate the Landers and Scrappers. Many of his comrades despised their enemies with a burning passion, and derogatorily called them the "enemies of expansion".
As for Robert himself, he only joined the military in order to protect his younger brother from the horrors of war. If he had to strike fear into the heart of his enemies to save his family, then he would gladly carry out his orders; so he gave one of the hostages a good smack with his rifle's stock to keep him from getting any ideas. Suddenly, a bright light blinded him momentarily, and something knocked off his feet.
"Snipers! Get to cover!", yelled one of Robert's teammates.
The HDC trooper crawled towards a nearby desk, and felt a sharp pain in his torso. The sight of flesh seared by a grazing laser bolt greeted the soldier's eyes. He strained his head to look for his other comrades in spite of the pain.
"Thax! Draw their fire! I'll take out the snipers!", one of the troopers yelled.
Mustering every ounce of his strength, Robert took off his helmet and mounted it on the barrel of his rifle. Then, he lifted it up just enough to make it look like he was sticking his own head over the desk. A few seconds later, a laser bolt tore through the helmet and nearly missed Thax's head. Unfortunately for the Lander sniper that had taken cover in the opposite building, he had just given away his position. A returning shot from an HDC marksman quickly silenced him.
"Nice work Thax. Oh sh-!"
Before the Coalition sniper could finish his statement, the group of soldiers found themselves surrounded by combat EVE probes. Thax assumed the Lander military had developed some sort of cloaking technology after their fight with the Scrappers, and the sniper had been a diversion.
The EVE probes stunned all of the surviving soldiers before any of them attempted to make a last stand. Before Robert's vision faded to black, his thoughts were of his brother back at home...
Robert Thax, soldier of the Human Dominance Coalition, died from his wounds shortly after he and his squad were captured by Lander forces. His younger brother received the news two weeks later.
After what seemed like an eternity, M-O and the Lander guard had reached the rooftop. Waiting for them was a hovering dropship, with an expectant-looking crew inside. The small robot jumped when he saw a beam of light come from one of the nearby towers.
"That must be the Lander military. We need to get you out of here before the fighting gets worse. Come on, M-O.", the security guard said before entering the waiting aircraft. The security guard gently set down M-O in a nearby seat, and then sat down in his own. The cleaning unit felt safe once the dropship flew farther and farther away from the fighting, and hoped that he could return to his regular cleaning routine soon. However, as the ride continued, M-O noticed something very peculiar: they were flying very far from the city. Oddly enough, the dropship wasn't even heading towards any nearby Lander security stations.
Noticing the worried look in the robot's eyes, the guard tried to reassure the microbe obliterator. "Don't worry, M-O. It's just standard security procedure; we don't know if the entire city has been compromised, so we're just flying towards the farthest city from here. It'll be a while 'till we get there, so why don't you rest? You look pretty tired."
M-O agreed; being in danger was pretty exhausting. After taking one last glance at the rapidly fading city, he went into sleep mode. When he awoke, he was greeted by a startling sight: a large corporate building, with the words, 'Sigma Intervention', in very large print at the top. This was no Lander base...this was a PMC* building!
"Huh?!", he warbled in surprise.
"Oh, this? Just calm down, M-O. We've been working with mercenaries for a while now.", the security guard told him before giving another dropship passenger behind M-O a slight nod. While M-O was focused on the security guard, the other man pulled out a small red device from his pocket.
"Just relax. Everything is going to be-", the guard started. In a flash, the man standing behind M-O placed the device on the cleaner bot's head, and pressed the button, making M-O collapse back into his box-like form.
"-fine.", the 'security guard' finished.
"That was a close one; it's a good thing we copied this device from the ones in the Axiom's Repair Ward. Damn, now I owe Dregs a few credits. I never thought you'd be able to pass for a Lander, Corporal. Good work.", Ryker, the man who had deactivated M-O, said while giving his fellow mercenary a pat on the shoulder.
"Thanks, but tell the Sergeant that I'm not doin' anymore acting jobs; I think I was actually starting to care for the little bot!", said the Corporal half-jokingly.
"Well, you won't have to worry about this little guy. Once we search its memories for anything important, we'll wipe this bot's memory of this whole day. It'll wake up, and this will all be just a bad dream. If robots have dreams, that is."
"How are we supposed to return him to the Landers without them suspecting anything?", the Corporal replied questioningly.
"Let the bosses take care of that. Come on, we got more clues to look for."
"This is the Lander News Network with a breaking news report! After the thwarted terrorist attack earlier today, Captain Michaelson issued a motivational speech to the public. The following audio clip is an excerpt from the speech."
"For years we have lived by the ideals set forth by Captain Brian MCcrea, a man who was undoubtedly ten times the leader I could ever hope to be. Now, as war rages within the very walls of our cities, we must remember not to fall into the clutches of despair and fear. We have been the victims of intimidation and violence since the beginning of this war. It's time for that to change."
There was a slight pause in the speech, as if the Captain was letting the full weight of his words sink in, and keeping the audience in anticipation.
"Tomorrow we launch the largest military offensive since the 21st century. If any of our enemies are listening to this, know that you will be spared the fate of complete and utter destruction if you relinquish your hostilities with us for the good of humanity. If you do not, then we will not hesitate to avenge the thousands of lives you have taken, whether man or machine."
The Corporal and Ryker stood beside a cold, metal table. On it rested a deactivated M-O, with a multitude of wires connected to his head. Both men were discussing various topics of interest while waiting for the computer to download vital information from the cleaner bot's central processing unit. One of the topics struck up a particularly interesting conversation: their two primary objectives.
"Did you ever know WALL-E and EVE, Corporal? I mean, you were around before the war started." Ryker asked his fellow mercenary.
"Not personally, but I've seen 'em once. I was born in Solaris, one of the cities that's in Dominance territory now, long after the Axiom's landing. Those two dropped by when I was in high school for some assembly about the environment, or something. What about you?"
"Me? Well, I grew up in a place that's in Scrapper territory now. Most of the kids hated robots, and would always paint graffiti of WALL-E and EVE burning.", Ryker said before chuckling to himself, and continued, "We'd always wait at the windows of our houses to be ready to throw water balloons whenever we heard news that those two were comin' to our town..."
"Man, even I didn't hate machines that much when I was a kid!", the Corporal said in surprise.
"Really? Well I'd say you had an unfulfilled childhood!", the other mercenary said with a smirk.
"Oh yeah? Well you can-wait. Hold on."
"What's the matter? Too old to come up with an insult?"
"Shut up Ryker. There's a message from Sarge on the computer."
"What does it say?"
"It says that the Landers are gonna be launching a full-scale invasion into Dominance territory, and listen to this: the Landers want us to be part of the first assault! There's more though: the HDC is willing to pay us a huge amount of credits if we help defend their cities!", the Corporal said to Ryker, while secretly hoping that his home city wasn't on the list of targets.
"So who're we going to fight with?"
"Like you said before-let the bosses take care of that."
First off, I want to thank you for reading this far into the story, and for that I'm going to do something special.
At this point, the story can diverge into two seperate paths-depending on which contract the mercenaries take. I'll let you decide who the mercenaries choose to fight with: the Landers or the Human Dominance Coalition. Simply leave a review telling me who the mercs should fight with, and I'll be sure to write the next chapters accordingly.
Here's the possible titles of the next chapter:
Hammer of the Righteous (mercs help Landers)
OR
Fear No Death (mercs help HDC, aka 'Dominance)
NOTE: This is NOT a Choose Your Own Adventure story, because this is one of the two times where I'll let the readers make a decision in the entire story. The other reader-decision is at the very end of the story.
*PMC is short for Private Military Corporation
Here's a short preview of each chapter:
(Hammer of the Righteous)
The Corporal watched as the Lander heavy armor came down the captured supply route. The mercenary platoon had checked for anti-tank mines along the road earlier, and had found none; even though the tanks used propulsion technology to float, the Corporal's platoon leader didn't want to take the risk. While the technology level of the HDC wasn't as advanced as the Landers, the mercenaries weren't willing to underestimate the enemy. To do so, of course, was the route to an early grave. Several divisions of EVE probes and Lander soldiers followed behind the armored convoy.
Many of the soldiers took a glance at the guns-for-hire that stood by the side of the road; the Corporal even caught a few glares of contempt from some of the EVE probes. Despite the mutual hatred the Corporal had for the EVEs, he couldn't blame them; they had every right not to trust men who would likely kill them in their sleep if paid to do so. Despite the wealth they acquired from contracts, mercenaries quickly learned that trust was a commodity they could only afford amongst each other. People who hired soldiers of fortune were just as likely to stab them in the back.
Surprisingly, a few of the Lander troops seemed genuinely happy to see them; some even waved to the mercenary platoon and shouted words of encouragement. The platoon waved back, and grinned underneath their skull-faced helmets, knowing that appreciation for them was hard to come by. It would make assaulting the city a lot easier. When both mercenary and Lander forces finally amassed within sight of the city, they were shocked to the core.
Again contradictory to the intelligence Lander command had provided them, the HDC military was well fortified around the Aegis City perimeter. Miles upon miles of concrete trenches, pill boxes, and miniature fortresses greeted them in an almost hellish embrace. The city itself was encircled by a towering steel wall, which bristled with firing ports for artillery and small arms. Trying to find a route around the massive defense network was virtually impossible; the only way to get to Aegis City was to go through and hope not to get slaughtered. If they were going to take this city, the Corporal figured, then they were going to need to pray for a miracle.
(Fear No Death)
Hold the line men! Give no quarter to the Lander scum!", Colonel Engar roared above the thunder. Aegis City was his home, and he would be damned if he let even one of his enemies set a single foot in it. A stray plasma bolt flew over his head as he barked orders, causing some of the soldiers beside him to duck down in fear. With a calm demeanor, he pulled out an incendiary grenade and tossed it into the charging Landers. A massive fireball erupted several meters in front of him, and charred corpses were tossed about like ragdolls. However, more EVE probes advanced through the flames, seemingly unaffected by the carnage around them. Just before one of the probes could fire a shot directly at Engar's head, the group of robots were engulfed in a bright blue field, and fell to the ground in lifeless heaps.
"Need some help?", called a gritty, mechanical voice behind the Colonel.
Engar turned his head, and saw a soldier wearing advanced power armor bearing the logo of Sigma Intervention on his right shoulder plate. In his left hand rested a a strange rifle, which brimmed with a glowing blue light. An EK-7 electro-rifle, notoriously dubbed the 'EVE killer' amongst any militant groups who were able to get their hands on such a weapon.
"Mercenary,", the grizzled Colonel said through gritted teeth, "where is the rest of our reinforcements?"
The PMC contractor only extended his right index finger into the air in response. As Engar turned his head skyward, he could hear shouts and cheers amongst his fellow troops. Several squadrons of air-to-ground gunships came soaring in, and blanketed the no-man's land between the trenches and forest with plasma bombs. The Colonel and his men had to shield their eyes to prevent becoming blind from the intense light. Once they opened their eyes, they saw that the majority of the Lander assault force had been turned into ash, and the survivors were in full retreat. The Colonel took the time to admire this before giving the orders that came straight from HDC command.
"Fix bayonets men! Drive these invaders to the grave!"