Chapter 2: Adapting to the Situation / War on Multiple Fronts
The Nerv command center was an expansive underground space. Captain Metzger stood on the second-highest tier of the multilevel command tower that blended into the back wall. He looked over the shoulders of three first lieutenants, including Lawson, as they typed on their workstation computers. The two lower tiers were filled with hectic activity as junior officers and NCOs worked and shouted. The upper tier was reserved for the commander and vice commander of the base, who were currently absent.
The empty space in front of the tower made room for a holographic projections of both data and live audiovisual feeds, and was currently showing a satellite image of British Columbia.
"Alright, we're about to get drone footage from the site," announced First Lieutenant Rebecca Montgomery, the pale, red-haired sensor operator.
"Just got word from Seattle-two. Air Force already sent up a pair of Warthogs. ETA two minutes," First Lieutenant Jacob Ford explained. The dark-haired young man with a no-nonsense look was the military liaison, charged with coordinating conventional forces assisting Nerv operations.
The display switched from the satellite image to aerial drone footage. The bridge crew were shown what they were up against: an 80-meter tall humanoid, resembling a knight in full plate armor. An expert on medieval warfare would've noticed the odd construction of the joints, which seemed to be more streamlined and organic-looking than usual for a suit of armor. However, anyone who was paying attention would've noticed the more obvious sign of the creature's departure from historical accuracy - the giant blades that were fused with its forearms and extended all the way to the ground.
"Pattern blue confirmed! It's an Archetype! DREAM analysis gives a ninety-eight percent chance that it's a Warrior-type," Montgomery shouted.
"Frontline attack, good staying power, not too bright," Metzger said to himself.
"Birds have arrived. Confirm weapons free?" Ford asked.
"Confirmed."
The grey A-10 "Warthog" Thunderbolt II attack planes circled around the gigantic knight. The undersides of their straight wings bristled with rocket pods and missiles, and the twin turbofan engines at their rears roared with power.
The Warthogs started their attack run, flying towards the knight's eight o'clock. The distinctive buzz of their GAU-8/A Avenger 30mm gatling guns filled the air as they sent a shower of depleted uranium rounds tracing up the Archetype's back.
"Target is padlocked, light 'em up!" the pilot of one of the planes called out as he fired missiles.
The AGM-65 Mavericks streaked towards the knight, then suddenly exploded as they met a barrier of concentric orange octagons. The A-10s banked just in time to avoid it and circled around the Archetype's rear for another attack run.
"Repeat: negative damage!"
The Nevada crew looked at the drone footage as the planes kept making futile attacks until they ran out of ammo. The Warrior payed them no mind. They weren't even worth swatting.
"Conventional forces ineffective." Metzger rubbed his chin. "What kind of a timer are we working on here?"
Montgomery looked over her readouts. "Target is two hundred klicks north-northeast of Vancouver, heading towards it. If it maintains current speed, it will arrive in four hours. Not sure if the mountains will impede it."
"Lawson, ETA for our Units?"
"We can have them in the air in less than thirty minutes. It'll take another ninety to reach the target."
"You have twenty to get them airborne." The captain paced behind his subordinates. "Ford, contact Seattle. Get a B-four standing by just in case."
"Why do they have to transport us face-down? Don't they realize that you're constantly standing bent over when the Unit is at this angle?" Alvarez complained as he sat in the elongated, high-tech pilot seat. The display walls of his capsule-shaped cockpit were hooked up to the external feeds of the aerodynamic container, showing the platform that he had been on when he first arrived at the facility. His hands rested on a pair of vaguely pistol-shaped control sticks with full-hand trigger guards. Even though they weren't connected to anything, he kept his fingers off the triggers.
"That's because you're sitting in the piloting position. What you gotta do is sit on the central display, resting your back on the bottom of the seat," Valentine explained while relaxing in his own Unit. Surely enough, he was using the small display that was mounted between the leg spaces of the pilot's seat as an improvised seat while the Unit was face-down. He had shifted the control sticks to their foremost positions and was pressing buttons on the inside surfaces of the trigger guards.
Both of the pilots wore skin-tight, full-body suits with high-tech chest pieces and hexagonal cuffs. Alvarez' suit was predominantly dark grey, with black and white detailing on the shoulders and sleeves. Valentine's, on the other hand, was black with yellow and orange highlights. They also wore teardrop-shaped hairclips on their temples, with the colors matching the main ones of their suits.
"Wow, this is more comfortable. It's also a great way to get thrown around the plug from the slightest jolt," Alvarez commented as he tried the more relaxed position. "Anyway, I can hear you clicking from here. Why are you messing with the settings now?"
A holographic screen came up in Valentine's cockpit. He was forced to sit properly in order to read it since it was oriented for normal piloting. "Just making sure that some Delta Sierra tech didn't accidentally revert to factory settings. It happened when I was first transferred to Groom Lake. I was lucky enough to be in a training exercise when I noticed."
Alvarez quickly returned to his seat and checked his own settings. "Thanks for reminding me. Wouldn't want to faceplant because it's set to power saving mode or something."
Satisfied with his check, Valentine sat on the display again. "That would be embarrassing. At least the default language is English in all the American-made models."
"By the way, which OS version are you using?" Alvarez asked.
"Six-point-four-point-one."
"Lucky bastard. Version five's targeting has been a steaming pile of shit since point-three. If I ever have to use ranged weapons, I'd rather have iron sights than this garbage."
"I heard V-five had some locked out features. You ever find out what's up with that?" Valentine asked.
"It's either the fixed version of the targeting system, or a kill everything within five miles button. Whatever it is, the brass thinks it's too powerful to be left in the hands of a 'maladjusted' former child soldier. Their words, not mine."
"Ha! Being a misfit is practically a job requirement. Cluster A, B and C personality disorders were common in many of the original candidates, and most of the others had symptoms show up due to the stresses of piloting. Don't even get me started on the weirdness of Manufactured brains," Valentine explained.
"I heard they're trying to mitigate it, but the going's slow because of how hard it is to find a shrink with the right security clearance," Alvarez commented.
Valentine sighed, letting out a breath of ripples that was the only indication of him breathing liquid. "Especially a Jungian shrink with a working knowledge of Territory Theory. They're the only ones who can even begin to understand what the hell is going on with Ego degradation."
"Gentlemen, what's your status?" Lawson asked over the comm.
"Elevators are about to start up. Topside in ten," Alvarez replied.
Back in the command center, an alarm sounded.
"Sir, we have a new contact! It's moving over the ocean towards old San Fran!" Montgomery exclaimed.
Everyone's eyes went wide.
Even Captain Metzger's expression changed slightly. "There has never been a double event before. At least not on the same continent. BosWash is only slightly further away from Vancouver than us, so we can call them in to handle that one."
Lawson frantically navigated through authentication screens to check the status of the east coast's main facility. "Negative, they're not going to have Units combat-ready for at least three days!"
Metzger's face almost showed concern. This was not a call to make lightly. "Damn it. We know that we need to prioritize the closest threat, so get our pilots on the way over there ASAP. Could have one loiter so they can be rerouted quickly if the threat in SF is low enough."
A confident, sophisticated voice came from behind them. "That won't be necessary, Captain."
The woman it belonged to was Colonel Ingrid Swan. She was slender and pale, looking surprisingly youthful for someone in their fifties with the exception of her bleached white hair pulled into a tight bun. Her cybernetic eyes surveyed the displays, the artificial blue irises rotating to zoom in and out. She wore the dark grey senior officer's uniform and her gloved hands rested on the railing separating the commander's level from the one below it.
"Ma'am, with all due-"
She cut Metzger off with a hand motion. "Go to the Anchorage provisional facility, Captain. We have another pilot candidate in the vicinity, so acquire them as soon as possible. I've already routed our other available Units to the location."
The captain turned and wordlessly left the room, his coat waving as he walked quickly.
"Now then, we must delay the creature in Canada for as long as possible until the captain can assemble the second half of our element. Lieutenant, when is our next kinetic weapons satellite going to be in firing position?" Col. Swan asked.
"Fifteen minutes, with a five-minute window, ma'am," Ford answered.
"Excellent." The colonel sat down in her chair and steepled her fingers in front of her face. "Pull back any remaining conventional forces and evacuate the area. Have DREAM coordinate firing of the impactor with a cruise missile from our bomber, compensating for the overpressure wave."
Lawson looked through the readouts from the DREAM supercomputer. "It's really going to have to go into the thick of it, ma'am. Hitting fifteen seconds after detonation gives a probability of less than point-five percent. Anything after that and it's expected that the Archetype's AT field will have recovered."
"Simulate multiple simultaneous shots."
"That's actually worse, ma'am. Overpressure is likely to cause the rods to collide with each other," Lawson explained.
"These things barely have guidance once they hit atmosphere. Talk about threading the needle from across the room," Ford added.
"Then we draw its attention. Hit it with multiple conventional warheads prior to the A-two. Have it expect further attacks from that angle," Swan proposed.
The Warrior marched towards the mountains. It sensed the settlement of the lesser beings beyond. Those weak creatures bound to lesser states of existence, unable to establish anything more than a meager Territory. Their weapons were weak and inert, made from the same bland dirt that they lived on. Crushing this speck would bring no glory, but the great conqueror needed to make an example.
It sensed more arrows of metal and flammable dirt flying towards it. They would not be allowed inside the Absolute Territory.
The A2 warhead was an antimatter-catalyzed, aneutronic fusion device. Nerv's signature warhead, the W101, had a yield of 1.5 megatons achieved by using positrons to annihilate the electrons of a boron plasma while providing the energy required to initiate fusion, then bombarding it with protons. The boron bomb, as it was known, was a useful thermonuclear weapon due to the substantial reduction in both emitted radiation and subsequent radioactive fallout, even if detonated on the ground. One such device was currently mounted in the last AGM-202 cruise missile of the salvo.
The thermobaric warheads pelted the orange barrier first, exploding into relatively small fireballs. The knight sensed something different in the last missile coming at it, but simply maintained its protective field.
The A2 warhead detonated right in front of the barrier, changing shape from a missile to a glowing, expanding orb of destruction in less time than a human could perceive. Hypersonic plasma hit the orange octagon, flattening against it before breaking it into shards that were outshone by the brilliant explosion even before they faded into nothingness.
The Warrior was swallowed up by the miniature sun. For the milliseconds in which it discharged its strength, this object of lesser matter had wielded more power than the knight.
At the base of the gargantuan mushroom cloud, it felt fear for the first time.
It needed to restore its defense. It needed the Territory if it was going to survive another hit from that weapon.
The distraction had been enough to keep it from noticing the tungsten dart coming at it from the sky. Unlike the haphazard thermonuclear explosion, this was a precise weapon which struck the creature's great helm and shattered it into pieces.
Everyone in the command center watched intently as the drone came back into range and showed a view the blast site. When the smoke cleared, they saw what was left of the Archetype: a headless, blackened suit of armor on its knees, supporting itself with its arm blades. It looked almost as if it was supplicating, but everyone knew that it was far from dead.
Col. Swan relaxed in her chair. "That's one problem taken care of for the time being. Now, on to the second one."
"Last contact was a seismic reading in eastern San Francisco-two," Montgomery reported.
Lawson checked the status of the Units. "Transports are on-site, standing by for orders."
"Very well. Green light for deployment," Swan commanded.
"Shadow Units five-oh-two and six-oh-six cleared for drop! Good hunting, gentlemen!" Lawson announced.
In the rainy sky above San Francisco-2, the aerodynamic containers mounted under the flying wing transports opened up, releasing a pair of 80-meter tall armored humanoids. They were more slender than humans, with elongated demonic heads and rectangular pylons rising from their shoulders. The war machines tumbled gracefully through the air, falling half a kilometer before landing in a large open space. The pavement cracked as the force of several thousand tons of armored cyborgs suddenly came to a halt on it.
Unit 5-02, piloted by Alvarez, was unusually muscular even for a Shadow, and displayed a predatory grin of metal teeth that had been welded shut. It was painted in urban grey digicamo with black stripes resembling roads and a low-visibility USAF insignia on the right shoulder. In its right hand it held a langes messer - a straight-bladed, single-edged sword as long as the Unit's arm.
Valentine's Unit, 6-06, was a much leaner model, with every surface sleek and aerodynamic. Its armor was a glossy, metallic black with neon yellow highlights. The Shadow's eyes glowed with a dark orange light that pierced the pouring rain. It held a high-tech semiautomatic pistol in its right hand and a single-edged, clip-point combat knife in its left.
The two enormous cyborgs stood up from their crouched landing poses and walked over to a nearby building. The side of it slid down to reveal a pair of rolled-up cables which the Shadows took and plugged into their backs.
"Alright, we're running on local power. Preparing to move out," Alvarez said over the comm.
"Last seismic reading was under that skyscraper. Let's start there," Valentine suggested.
Lawson's voice came in over the comm. "Weapons free. Activate your Ultrathermics."
The Shadows pressed buttons on the guards of their melee weapons, causing the edges of the blades to glow red-hot and release clouds of steam as the rain hit them. The Units advanced along the extra-wide roads that ran between the city's office buildings, specifically designed for peak hour traffic as well as giant war machines.
The two Units approached and flanked the skyscraper, keeping their lines of fire clear as they raised their weapons. As soon as they were both next to it, the building shattered into a shower of glass and metal.
A row of curved blades lashed out from the cloud of dust, barely missing the biomechanical giants as they jumped back and out of melee range. The Archetype revealed itself - a snake-like creature with iridescent scales and a pair of red eyes on each side of its vertical jaw. The metallic blades were extensions of its spine, and it had another wicked blade where its tongue should be. It moved constantly through the air, gliding around in a swirl of colors that made it difficult to keep track of its head and tail.
"Tricky and maneuverable. Must be a Seeker-type," Alvarez commented as he brought his messer up into a high guard, keeping his left hand on the pommel.
"Slow is smooth..." Valentine brought up his gauss pistol and fired, sending a slug of iron and depleted uranium flying out of the barrel at Mach 11.
The Seeker's body flexed, letting the round fly through a gap between the blades and punch a hole in a mountain range outside the city. Valentine saw four stars of red light appear on its head as it charged up its counterattack. Unit 6-06 rolled to the side just in time to avoid the four beams fired from the Seeker's eyes.
"My turn!" His target's attention drawn elsewhere, Alvarez charged in and thrust his blade at the Archetype, leaving a smoldering trail along its underbelly. The Seeker hissed and whipped around Unit 5-02, slicing through the cable connected to the Shadow's back using its bladed tongue.
Alarm tones sounded and red lights flashed in Alvarez' plug as a power indicator appeared. The pilot's mind raced. Thirty seconds. Run and get a new umbilical, or finish the fight here?
The moment of predictable motion after Seeker's attack was all that Valentine needed. He let off another round, and this time it hit the burn mark left by Alvarez, shredding the creature's body and sending pieces of ribcage flying out of the gaping exit wound, along with a spray of red blood.
Alvarez spun around, catching the Seeker with the flat of his red-hot messer and knocking it to the ground. Without missing a beat, the snake coiled around Unit 5-02's legs and tore through the armor with its dorsal blades, severing muscles and cracking bones.
The pilot cried out as he felt the pain of the Shadow's injuries in his own kneecaps, then retaliated by pressing his superheated blade against the creature, sending smoke hissing from its scales until it let go of him and darted away.
The Seeker charged at Valentine, who fired off a wide shot before it flew around his Unit. He spun around after it as he slashed with his knife, keeping the snake at bay but failing to land a hit.
Unit 5-02 limped towards the fight, using its deactivated sword as a crutch. Twenty Seconds... Alvarez gritted his teeth, keeping his focus through the pain, the noise and the flashing lights.
In his pirouette, Valentine had managed to get his umbilical cable wrapped around the body of his Unit, not severely hampering his mobility, but leaving it wide open for the Seeker, which closed in to strike with its tongue blade...
The snake's wicked tongue stopped less than a meter from the cable, with Valentine's knife stuck in the creature's head. "Smooth is fast!" the pilot called out. With the press of a button on the knife's guard, the blade heated up beyond safe operating temperature, melting through the Seeker's metallic tongue until it dropped free of its mouth.
The impaled Archetype continued to writhe, forcing Unit 6-06 to hold it at arm's length to avoid behind slashed by the dorsal blades. "Alvarez! Finish it!" Valentine shouted as he pinned the Seeker to the ground by its head.
Reactivating his sword, Alvarez pulled it from the pavement and plunged it into the Seeker's body, hitting the Core as the struggling snake's bladed tail lodged itself in Unit 5-02's side.
The Core began to glow as the Seeker finally expired. Unit 6-06 pushed 5-02 away, ripping it free of the creature's tail. Valentine raised his Unit's AT Field just in time to shield the two Shadows from the Archetype's explosive death throes. A column of fire rose high above the skyscrapers, with two lines bursting out to give it a cross shape.
As the roar of the explosion faded, only the sound of rain filled the silence as the two titans stood victorious. With Unit 5-02 out of power, Ignacio Alvarez was content to sit in the darkness of the entry plug, relaxing as the pain he had felt through the neural link started to fade.
The calm was broken by Col. Swan's voice coming in over the comm, which ran on its own power supply. "It seems congratulations are in order, gentlemen. Our sensors indicate that the target was completely destroyed. Due to the... uncomfortable external environment, I would suggest that both of you stay inside your plugs until the recovery team arrives." As she spoke, the pilots heard the bridge crew cheering in the background.
"Understood, ma'am. Five-oh-two is pretty beat up, but I'm still operational in case you want six-oh-six providing support in Canada," Valentine explained as he sat in his fully-lit plug, looking at a video feed of the colonel on a holographic screen projected in mid-breathable-liquid.
"That won't be necessary, Lieutenant. I am certain that the second team of this element will be quite capable of handling the weakened Archetype," Swan replied.
Another screen appeared next to the colonel's, displaying Lawson's face. "Good job, guys. The VTOLs should be there in a few minutes to take you back to Vegas. You earned some R&R, so feel free to unwind tonight."
Throughout San Francisco-2's underground bunkers, the speakers played a pre-recorded message:
"This is an announcement from Nerv emergency services. It is now safe to leave this shelter. Please exit at the indicated egress points in an orderly fashion."
At certain intervals, the repeating message was interrupted to play another one:
"Due to damage to the water supply network, residents of buildings dependent on the public water grid are advised avoid drinking or washing skin with tap water. Repairs are underway and will be completed as soon as possible."
Many of the evacuees grumbled, but were thankful for the warning. Better to rely on bottled water and cleaning wipes than to accidentally drink traces of the red contaminant in the rainwater.
The underground streets around the destroyed building were cordoned off as emergency workers in HAZMAT suits hurried to seal off any remaining leaks and decontaminate the area. It had been a hotel and nightlife hotspot, so it was already mostly empty when the call to evacuate came in.
The expected dip in tourism was of little concern to Nerv. The organization considered the destruction of a single major building and relatively minor damage to utilities to be acceptable losses in the war against an inhuman foe.