After Activation 1170 - Origin Universe
After Insertion 1131 - Cultivation Universe
Millennium 143-32M - 40k Universe
AD 2002 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe
Fiona Bradley was on a patrol with 87#2716, a joint patrol if the name didn't clue you in. The fact that NOD had been going around and obliterating what looked to be thousands of civilians had the leadership of the Coalition, pressure that of NOD to accept the idea of joint patrols, join missions, joint everything. All of it in an attempt to force NOD to stop their actions of genocide on the basis that if they did not go about killing thousands of people every few months, the "ascension" would be threatened.
What the hell this ascension was nobody was telling, but it was important enough to warrant the extermination of what must have been dozens of villages and towns. The fact that NOD was in fact rather… insane, but there was nothing that could be done. They were far too integral to the continued existence of the NTU's governments, their industry, technology, and everything else that might be considered to have changed in the last 20 years.
NOD's penetration into their systems meant that it was simply impossible to take NOD out of the equation, everything would fall apart. The reasoning being that the people being killed weren't even of their own universe, so caring less was to be expected. But the threat of them doing it in the home universe was enough that the leaders pressured NOD's public leadership into accepting the idea of joint patrols for accountability.
And so it was that Fiona was patrolling with 2716. He was a quiet one, never one for idle talk… like the rest of NOD. In fact, he didn't speak at all unless he absolutely needed it to such as giving orders, acknowledging orders, shouting at people to kneel down and surrender, warning her of potential traps, telling her to shoot the prisoners… the usual stuff. Just pure silence until she forgot that he even had a voice until he decided to use it again and freak her the fuck out. The strange thing was that all of NOD sounded as if they were the same person, just reaaaally tiny differences in pitch that you had to work at to hear.
It was very disturbing but there was nothing she could do about it really, it was her job to work with them and if they were insane, well that was just another issue to be worried about. She tried to mitigate it, as was her unofficial job, but trying to mitigate 2719 felt like using her hands to scoop out the ocean with her hands and no bucket.
It had gotten to the point where she felt lucky that she could get to prisoners before he did, stopping her from putting a hole in their heads if he deemed them to be a saboteur. The public itself was very aware of the proclivity of NOD operatives to tend towards violence and as a result they that did turn themselves in, or surrendered after a battle, tended to surrender to GDI officers if they wanted to live. Those that surrendered to NOD were generally the ones with intelligence and it was frustrating to see them shot so quickly.
Both of them were part of the PRT, the Paris Reaction Team, tasked with responding to threats inside of Paris itself. The kind of threat that usually revolved around enemy action including weapons left behind by the GDI and NOD, while also those that were trying to plant explosives and the like. Strictly saboteur and terrorist activity. It had been on the rise lately and Fiona was pushing herself hard to keep up. She wasn't sure just how long she could keep this up for, but she wasn't going to give up until her body fell apart on her.
As for why she as on the team, her actions in the Middle East had seen her commended after she had crawled her way up some stairs, worked the recoilless rifle and destroyed 3 enemy tanks despite the fire coming her way. She only stopped after losing an arm and having the other crippled, something that only slowed her down as she proceeded to call in fire support with the radio, using her foot to press down the talk button.
After the battle, she had been placed in recovery, got herself a Silver Star and more importantly new arms courtesy of NOD's cloning abilities. It always felt weird to think of them like that, using NOD arms to stop NOD operatives from killing civilians.
As for the PRT, that was after her battalion's assignment to Paris where she was recognised by the base commander and recommended up the chain. A few twists and turns, no doubt her father's meddling and she was here while the rest of the battalion shipped out to Australia.
The patrol itself was a rather standard one actually, just walking around the city, weapons ready to engage at the slightest sign of a threat, eyes peeled for any possible signs that there might be danger heading their way. The insurgents had gotten very good when it came to things like ambushes. The best way to spot that one was happening was the absence of anyone familiar nearby, the idea that killing friendlies was bad business as the more civilian casualties there were, the less popular they would be.
Their original attempts of gaining support had been stymied by NOD in hindsight. By provoking increasingly violent responses by the occupation forces, they were hoping that the increasingly draconian laws would, in turn, result in them gaining more popular support as the normal civilian grew increasingly unhappy with the regime.
Only it had not gone the way they expected it to at all. Things had in fact taken a very dramatic turn for the worse when the NOD forces wiped out entire towns in retaliation for what they had done. Every single terrorist that had been found had their entire village wiped out. It was horrifically brutal but had instilled in the people an extreme amount of fear. There would be no more of those kinds of attacks, no more trying to instigate the population because the damage that came as a result, was enough to shatter their entire process of thought.
The idea that NOD was evil, was already entrenched in the minds of the population of the world as it was. Somehow forcing them to kill more civilians was not going to work, NOD just killed anything that got in their way anyway. It was best to lay low and avoid it happening at all. When NOD showed that they were very happy to carpet bomb civilian cities, well the people saw the Coalition in a different light. No longer truly evil, but the ones that were going to save them from NOD, the lesser of two evils as it were.
Fiona tried not to grimace at that thought, being seen as less worse than NOD was not how she wanted to be thought of by the people that were under her jurisdiction. 'Awesome person, who was really cool maybe', but "the lesser evil"? That was just a kick in the teeth.
Still, there was little she could do to change that point of view, not in the short term at any rate. They were here for the long term and things were going to be changing… hopefully. The Coalition was bringing into the city much hope, much… sense of purpose. With the way that they were pressuring the people to accept the dual nature of life underneath the Coalition, it would be soon when they finally accepted their fates.
The Coalition would give them a sense of self, a sense of purpose while also providing to them everything they needed to fully realise their inner sloth at the same time. Work, play, freedom exactly where they needed it and none where they didn't.
Too much freedom was a negative, too much control was a negative, one had to find a balance and the Coalition had found that balance.
Fiona was proud to be part of the Coalition, bringing peace and stability to this world that was likely going to implode on itself after a few more years at this rate.
As she walked forward, Fiona ran her left hand over her carbine, a shortened version of the standard rifle for city operations. It wouldn't do to have the thing get stuck on doorways when she needed it the most after all.
It was in perfect condition as she demanded her weapons and equipment be. There would be no slacking off for Fiona, no imperfections, anything that could impact operational performance was accounted for and corrected at the earliest opportunity, something taught to her by her father.
For him, it was more relevant what with him commanding a tank, but it still applied for her, even if it was of a smaller scale.
Weapon in hand, life, guns, ammunition, all the things that a Marine needed in a hostile city.
"Report all PRT units. Call at coordinates #0928 grid mark E."
Well, it looked like that was only 3 blocks away, looking at 2716 she jerked her head and the two of them began to move. Better get there before there were more dead PRT and civilians.
Picking up the pace, Fiona briefly shouldered the rifle, keeping the barrel to the sky and began to run, it was going to knock her out of breath, but maybe her presence would help defuse the situation. If it didn't, well she was going to unshoulder her rifle when she was about a block away, all the better to keep her alive after all, every civilian was a potential hostile.
It wasn't as bad now as it had been when they first arrived, but the idea that a civilian would suddenly bring out a home-made grenade and throw it at people was not one that was absurd and unreal, it happened far too many times for Fiona to discount it. It was getting harder with all the checkpoints and the like but it was far too easy to make explosives out of anything for Fiona not to feel just the slightest bit paranoid about her safety.
Which no doubt was part of the reason they did it, the more paranoid she was, the more likely she would shoot civilians and get painted as the bad guy. It was frustrating and sometimes she wished she could be like the NOD soldiers and just shoot suspects and it would be accepted, since NOD were already "evil." Bah.
Taking out her rifle, Fiona slowed down at the next few steps, her weapon up and ready, they would be around the left side of the wall. Waiting at the corner, Fiona breathed in steadily to get her breath back, waiting for the tap on the shoulder from 2716 before going in.
Ready. Ready. Now.
Fiona turned the corner, rifle up and ready, her hand on the wall to support it and aiming down the street. 2716 on the other hand, pushed himself into the middle of the street, rifle up high.
There was nothing.
Dammit all.
Fiona and 2716 dived to the ground at the same time, 2716 rolling to the right as he did so, as close to the wall as he possibly could while Fiona rolled to the left.
If it was a big one they might not make it, but a shrapnel one? Well the more that was between them and the explosion, the safer they would be.
The insurgents loved to do things like this, fake something that would need an intervention, plant a bomb, run away and hit the responding team. It was cowardly, and it worked. The problem being that it also caught civilians half the time.
There was no explosion, which meant it was highly likely that there was a watcher with a detonator. It also meant that they were likely out of the blast radius. Or that they were waiting for Fiona to call in a bomb disposal squad, then detonate it while they were out of the "safe" area.
Booby traps were devious and Fiona wished she was in Australia where the fighting was more straightforward.
"Have called in reinforcements." Came 2716's voice.
Fiona clicked her mic in response and settled down to wait, no standing up and presenting a target. Just lying here… waiting… bah.
After Activation 1170 - Origin Universe
After Insertion 1131 - Cultivation Universe
Millennium 143-32M - 40k Universe
AD 2002 - C Red Alert/Generals - Rise of the Reds Universe
Fiona Bradley and 87#2716 were ready. A few hours previously they had been lying prone, hoping that if the bomb went off it wouldn't kill them in the blast or the shrapnel. At the same time, they hoped that the EOD team wouldn't get caught in it because the bomber was trying to wait for enough people to show up for maximum damage.
Thankfully a NOD operative had found the man by tracing a wire that emerged out underneath the road and into the sewers. Tracing the wire to the man in question saw the bomber apprehended, something that meant they were now free to dispose of the bomb without worrying about some kind of active trigger. Rather the trigger was a passive one which was all sorts of hell.
The idea that there was an anti-tilt mechanism that would allow for it to detonate if they tried to move it, the idea that there wasn't a mechanism, but rather a second bomb underneath that meant removing the first one would automatically set of the second one. That and so much more, the many different varieties of ways that people could set up IEDs and the ways in which you could die despite doing every single bit of the job correctly.
It was therefore, a job that required nerves of steel and the EODs had those in spades, each and every one of them. It was a job that required a man to cut wires, to fiddle with non-standardized explosives and hope that things weren't going to go wrong and kill all of them. Each of them would attempt to follow very specific instructions as to prevent their deaths, instructions that could be anticipated and that in following them would cause the bomb to go off. It was a game of constant cat and mouse, that every time they chose a course of action, there was a very high chance that the next time it would be accounted for and they would die horribly.
Fiona had gotten a new level of respect for EOD technicians when she had learnt exactly what it was that they did for a living. Something that was of vital importance given how many of the damned things were in the city, something that meant they could not resort to the SOP when it came to IEDs, that being detonating them instead of trying to fiddle with them.
That way the explosive was destroyed and everything else as well, including the traps. But in the city of Paris where there were countless civilians? That was not something that was possible and so the technicians were forced to either try and defuse the bomb, or at the very least try and destroy the device in order that it not detonate and kill everyone they knew or loved.
It was a tough act and sometimes the best option was to just shoot the damn thing. Little robots that would use their shotguns to just shoot the hell out of the bomb and if it didn't go off, then it was highly likely that the device or at least the manner in which it was going to be set off no longer worked. Not exactly the most elegant of solutions, but it was one that worked.
And so the bomb had been defused (shot to pieces), the bomber apprehended and passed over to NOD custody as it was a NOD operative that took him in the first place. What that meant for the man… was copious amounts of torture, of agony, of pain, of endless suffering until he gave the interrogators the answers to the questions that they wanted and often to questions, they hadn't even asked yet.
The problem being that torture generally didn't work at all. The fact that a man being tortured would say literally anything to stop the torture playing a big part in that. Which for NOD meant that their own methods were more… insidious. Ones that made a person want to be truthful because if they weren't… it was back into the indoctrination vats.
Mercy was not a word that one would associate with NOD and the bomber was likely to give up the answers at the first sign of pressure, him being just a regular person thinking he could fight against the "oppressive system", or he was a fanatic and would break in a few days. It turned out he was the former and had given up the location of the ones that had supplied him with the explosives within minutes. NOD had vatted him anyway and the information given out was the exact same, reliable then.
It was passed down the chain and now Fiona along with her trusty sidekick 2716 were about to raid a house that was apparently the one that the bomber had received the bomb from. It was inside of here that they hoped to find another member of the cell, find enough of them and they might even get the ringleader. It was all a matter of luck, but something told Fiona that life wasn't that easy.
Still, they had to try, if they didn't then it would be a huge waste of time when it came down to it.
As for Fiona, she was just here to do her job, raid the place, capture anyone inside and then get out, find her bunk and get some much needed sleep. She was sure the guys on the front had it so much easier than she did. What with them not having to deal with the constant stress of being attacked by those she thought were civilians and the like.
Still, it was a job that needed doing and needed doing for a long time if the fact that they would be inside this city for the foreseeable future was true as the rumours said.
There were a few other teams ready to breach from the multiple angles of the house. It was a typical house/flat. The ground floor being some kind of shop, the second a set of apartments, same for the third and the fourth. The third was the area of interest and they would be breaching it from the outside windows as well the front door. Hit it from all angles at once and prevent any sort of escape. It did mean that if it was booby trapped that doing so would get them killed, but at the very least it meant they could secure the target without needed to shoot him in the leg as he was running away.
Fiona had gotten good at shooting out knee caps from behind, not a skill she liked to advertise, though.
Nodding to 2716 Fiona prepared to breach.
Standing on the left side of the door, 2716 on the right, Fiona took a deep breath. They would be doing this loud, which in turn meant that they would be going through it with feet kicking out the door, guns at the ready to put down anyone in their way.
Fiona held the breath. Holding it in.
Then release.
She nodded to 2716, he eased his way back and set up his stance, and…
Bam
Kicking backwards, his foot slamming just below the doorknob, 2716 burst the door wide open.
Fiona was in, carbine at her shoulder, eye going down the sight.
Eyes constantly scanning to the left to the right, carbine sweeping the same way. There wasn't going to be anything that was allowed to jump out at her, not here, not now.
Scanning. Seeing. Scanning.
Targets not in view. Scanning.
There.
"Hands in the air! This is a raid! Get your hands in the air! Do not move!" She shouted out at the man who was scrambling for what looked like a gun. He stopped momentarily but kept fumbling beneath the table.
Too much, too late. She pulled the trigger. Once, twice, the bullets slamming into his shoulder, sending him off his chair and to the ground. She kept pushing in, trusting 2716 to secure the man while she took the rest of the room. It was a typical apartment, 1 main room, the entrance hall, a few smaller rooms to the side.
From the window-side, she could hear the windows being smashed in, windows that were the entry point for the second team. Sweeping into the next of the small rooms, she continued her search. There was nothing, there was nobody.
But if the shouts and sounds of gunfire from the front were any indication, her allies had found quite a few of them.
Standing in the middle of the room, they found there to be 6 men and women in total, all with their hands covered in KNO3, a nitrate that worked very well in the propellant for rockets. Primitive. You could make the stuff from sugar and fertiliser, which made it oh so very hard to crack down on them.
Regardless she was here and they were going to need to demonstrate exactly why they should be left alive, creating weapons of terrorism was grounds for summary execution.
The fact that there were NOD operatives next to them clearly was enough to cause the terrorists to crack, they had heard the stories of the NOD facilities and immediately gave up everything they had. There was a training facility in the forests, based out of an old and abandoned castle.
A target.
If they took it out, it would make it so that dealing with the terrorists would become that much easier, what with them not having a training ground for the foreseeable future. Even if it was just 1 of many, the decreased output would only help.
Fiona cracked her neck and trudged out of the room. Since it was in the forests outside of Paris, very far outside of Paris, she wouldn't be joining them for this one. It looked like after this little bit of excitement, they were right back to where they had started out, doing patrols on the street.
It wasn't as if she hated them really, she was just rather irritated by the periods of boredom that were interrupted by periods of extreme terror. A terror that she couldn't even do anything about given it was from the shadows, from those that she wouldn't think were perpetrating it.
At least those on the frontline generally knew when and where their attacks were coming from. Here it was just a matter of luck it seemed like. The barracks had been hit several times already, primitive rockets bringing with them what looked to be munitions scavenged from when the armies had left the continents. Mortar shells, artillery, grenades, anything that could cause an explosion. Dozens of dead, many times that in wounded.
An anti-artillery system had to be set up which only increased the visibility of their occupation. Small turrets that fired a constant stream of 35mm ammunition into the sky, destroying incoming missiles and artillery systems.
It was a constant battle really and Fiona didn't envy they who had to find ways to retouch the system in such a way that allowed for them to counter the multitude of threats that were coming their way. From small drones that mimicked birds, to rodents who had eaten explosives and more. The most ingenious of methods so far having been paper planes laces with a deadly powdered neurotoxin, that hadn't been a fun day, having to wear a protection mask all day for a week as the CBC teams scoured the base and pronounced it to be safe.
As for Fiona, she had another 2 hours left of patrol and it looked like she was going to be wandering around the city rather mindlessly, like she always did really.
Putting on the safety again, she walked down the street to their usual patrol route, 2716 walking beside her. He was like a rather vicious killer puppy really, just following her around, killing the things that needed killing, back at her side and following her on walks.
Which told Fiona that something was rather wrong with her if she was trying to ascribe animal values to the NOD operatives. Sure they were a little weird and crazy, but just trying to make them seem more human was just not going to work, not unless she wanted to slip up at some point and say "good job boy" which would probably see her killed for it.
Maybe she needed that break her commanding officer was offering them.