'We're all on the same page, then.' UMP-45's voice chimed over the neural network.
'Yes.' the others had pinged back.
UMP-9 studied her sister's face- that same, unflinching mask. Though the others couldn't see the excitement that buzzed beneath that cold smile, 9 knew her sister.
She hesitated a moment, double checking to make sure she was on the private network that linked her personally to 45.
'Sis, are we to operate at full capacity?'
'I don't see why not.' 45 had pinged back, her internal voice dismissive, 'If this commander is versed in unconventional tactics, then it would be reasonable to assume that we would be.'
'Non-standard engagement, huh?' 9 pinged excitedly. After so many newbie missions restraining herself, she was finally getting permission to cut loose.
They had been playing stupid, certainly. 45 had written up a completely fictitious background for them, falsifying their records in the base's database to appear as their older IOP model UMP dolls. As such, the twins had to act like rookies.
Despite all that, the commander seemed to understand the UMP twins' capabilities- the man had a knack for seeing potential, even in androids.
'You want to show them, don't you?' 45's presence practically cooed, the virtual sensation of 45 affectionately stroking 9's hair.
'I could say the same for you sis.' 9 grinned back, 'That "Ghost of the Urals" thing has got you interested finally?'
An impulse close to a cough or a clearing of the throat punched through the line. 9 had been constantly telling her sister that this commander was the one- and certainly 45 was sick of her pressing the matter.
"Drop in one minute. Make your final checks." FAL announced, taking her position near the dummy-racks to assist with the disembarking.
The area for the exercise was the bombed out remains of some unfortunate city, where both the military and IOP conducted weapons tests, a pre-war relic reduced to further rubble with each passing experiment. It was almost exactly what most T-dolls would be tested in; after all many T-dolls had urban-fighting protocols, but those came laden with variables for dealing with non-combatants, disguised insurgents, IEDs…
FAL had made it clear that using such protocols would hinder performance instead of just using their standard combat processes that they used for fighting against SF, adapting part of the urban combat data regarding terrain assessment and asymmetrical engagement. Little did she know that 45 and 9 were already well prepared- experienced, even.
Even now, as the helicopter prepared for touchdown amidst the ruins of concrete towers and the skeletal frame of human civilization, 9 was already analyzing anything and everything she could potentially use to her advantage and storing it amidst the neural network for future computations.
After all, there was no guarantee that the commander's predictions were correct, and they may have to adapt on the fly. Best to always be ready.
Despite the echelon's readiness for the drop, it was not an urgent landing in the slightest- nothing like when they were in a combat zone, at least. The human crew took their time unloading the dummies instead of just dumping them off the racks- actually running proper diagnostics and weapon checks like stanard G&K deployment protocols dictated. Once everyone in the echelon was linked and synchronized properly with their dummies, they started off for the starting location.
"If we were a real opposing force, wouldn't we already be in position?" M14 poked at the flaw in the exercise, huffing at the fact that they were going to have to enjoy a foot-race before the fight.
"Most of the time SF just assaults us as soon as we establish a landing zone." NTW shrugged, the heavy rifle of hers tipping precariously at the slightest shift of her shoulders, "Perhaps that is the point?"
"So we're supposed to be SF?" M14 made a sour expression, "I don't think I can act like an SF Jaeger."
"We are meant to be a trained, disciplined, and determined opposing force." FAL hadn't even turned to acknowledge the conversation, most likely to hide her own disgust at the thought of playing SF, "So you act with dignity and pride befitting a professional soldier, yes?"
"Ma'am!" M14 and her dummies saluted in synch, grins wide.
Chopper blades echoed in the distance, out from the north. Their opponents were arriving. It sent a collective electric shiver through the network.
"If SF used the same tactics the commander trained-" 9 shuddered at the thought. Unless they were lead by a ringleader model, most SF units acted in the same brazenly stupid manner, unable to break the chains of their programming. Even when they were lead, some ringleaders lacked the same deviousness a human was capable of, simply using lesser models as glorified shields.
"-humans would have been wiped out not-to-long ago." 45 seemed a little too happy at her own statement, "What are we if not slaves to our programming."
"Send the map data again." FAL's request cut the awkward air that 45 had thrown out with her brazen remark.
45 and 9 combined their scouting data- the ground-level view where they would retrace steps to the positions that the team had determined.
"How long until you can get into your positions and be ready?" 45 turned towards the sniper team, both of whom were silently crunching the numbers based on the visual data.
"Five minutes." NTW winced, knowing that it was mostly her fault that they would move so slow. 45 seemed all the more excited, regardless.
"Nine and I will run interference on the enemy formation then."
FAL frowned at this declaration.
"Do not be absurd, I will move with you to-"
"Trust us." 9 placed a confident hand upon FAL's exposed shoulder, "We've got this."
9's dummies all gave the lone assault rifle doll a synchronized thumbs-up; a confidence that was reward with a deep, begrudged sigh.
The operation began with a hissing buzzer signal through their network, and 9 and her sister took off ahead of the formation, already breaking the expectation of an echelon. Full-tilt, the pair could easily outpace all but the most nimble of handgun units.
The enemy, if heading directly for the landing zone to capture it, would reach the ambush point in three minutes at the quickest pace possible. A likely course of action if they were looking to start a straight-up firefight. 9 and 45 could intercept them at least a minute and a half before, and fight a delaying action if need be.
'Break and drop your dummies near potential contact. Run interference. I will provide distraction if needed.' 45's command module sent a shiver through 9, a thrill that could not be matched.
9's dummies trailed behind her in a bounding line, unable to match the mainframe in her full performance. The best thing they were for at this point was taking in any tactical data, finding good observation points, cover, hides and the like while 9 focused on processing the quickest route.
Normally, the commander would be watching from a drone or satellite- he'd be feeding them information- but for this operation he had given full command over to 45.
It was a test.
9 grinned wider as she vaulted a broken concrete divider and dashed across the open street, her dummies left behind in standby mode until she needed them. Instinct- memory fragments of past experiences- it told her to halt and listen when she reached the other side of the street.
Heavy steps, all marching together in a hasty jog.
The sound of it made 9 jump into a busted up corner market, weaving through decrepit shelves and through the back storeroom until she emerged out into a back-alley between these shells of civilization. A broken fire-escape ladder provided her with roof access just above where all the noise was coming from
'Contact, putting eyes on.' She pinged to the team's network, setting out a small GPS signal of her location. The group had marched past her building, allowing her to take a peek unhindered by the fear of being spotted.
'Exactly as the commander predicted.' She happily announced, sending a blurred screencap of the rear of the enemy formation.
'Recalculating estimated time of arrival, then.' 45 had tapped FAL on the network, both echelon leaders combining their processing power to come up with the solution in an instant.
'Four minutes. We can run minor delay action before we need to be in position.' 45's suggestion was more to 9 than asking the rest of the echelon, and 9 was more than eager to cause some havoc.
Without asking permission, 9 fired a burst into the rear of the formation.
*Ptshtshtshtsh*
It was largely ineffective at the range she engaged at, but 9 laughed as the entire group shouted in surprise. Before the machineguns could figure out where the fire had come from, 9 lept from the roof onto the fire escape landing below. She slipped back into range of her dummy-links, assuming control of one. The enemy had spun their formation to face where the fire had come from, and in their distraction, 9 slid one of her dummies to their flank again. It opened fire, the suppressed shots sounding like someone hissing out in the distance.
This time, the shotguns seemed to grasp that something was up. One had spun before all the others, taking a snap shot at 9's dummy. "Buckshot" clipped the shell before 9 could get it to slink away. The tag rounds registered the fictitious damage- the dummy was still functional, but barely.
The enemy echelon had shifted its formation, having enough guns to make a 360 degree perimeter bristling with barrels. No more easy harassment, but they certainly would move slower now.
'Delayed them!' 9 slipped through the shadows of the alley, moving to disengage when a hail of dummy rubber rounds tore through the mouth of the alley. She ducked out, running full speed towards where her dummies stood by.
'E-com chatter.' 45 whispered in the twin's private channel, 'The enemy commander spotted you with a drone. He's following you right now instead of looking for the rest of our echelon.'
If 9 could sweat, there would have been a cold one breaking out on her right now.
'Move now.'
9 didn't need to be told, the volume of fire cussing her out as she dashed across the street spoke to her plenty. Still, she laughed, smile upon her face as she sacrificed the damaged dummy to buy one more precious second.
'More e-com chatter. Double time push after you, they're ignoring any insignificant contact.'
'Well, I'm shooting peas at them, aren't I?' 9 stuck her tongue out to the sky, blowing a raspberry at her unseen observer as she slipped around a corner.
'They bit, at least. The enemy commander thinks they can single you out. Man, does this guy ever shut up?' 45's contempt leaked through slightly, a disgust for humans that she so diligently kept hidden from everyone else.
'Have they spotted the rest of the team?' 9's concern for the G&K dolls seemed to make 45 bristle, but the older sister still had to regard the rest of the echelon as their own.
'Meet up with my dummies, make it look like we're convening, then slip out of the fly's sight.'
'Got it, sis!'
9 met up with the remaining dummies, taking that extra second she earned to reestablish a firm connection over them. She had exactly a minute before the enemy echelon was on top of her, meaning that she had about thirty seconds before she was in their firing arc.
'Fish on the line.' 9 announced to the team, causing everyone on the network to perk up. A quick GPS ping from the team revealed that they were almost in position. NTW would need a good thirty seconds or so to completely set up. Easy enough.
45's dummies were waiting at the next intersection- they'd all be in the firing envelope shortly.
"They're coming! We've got to warn the team!" 9 shouted to the barely animated dummies. The false looks of shock and panic on 45's doppelgangers were comical- they were expressions that 9 had never seen her sister truly make, and thus she could not even register that they could ever be real.
"Quick! We need to go!" One of 45's dummies had announced, dramatically pointing down to where the ambush lay, "We're overextended!"
Thirty seconds were up- the electric tingle of looming danger.
9 had positioned herself closest to cover as the fusilade of dummy rounds "shredded" two of 45's dummies, forcing everyone in the street to scatter and scurry for the final bend.
'E-com chatter again, man this commander doesn't shut up.' 45 groaned internally, 'He's scouting ahead but hasn't spotted our hide. Oh, he's ordered a combat march- they've got weapons ready.'
Two dummy's were 'cut down' as 9 rounded the fateful corner, though her mainframe hadn't taken a hit. Dummy rounds pounded the corner, as if the machineguns were expecting her to do something as stupid as trying to peek it.
9 commanded her remaining dummies to keep running down the street as she herself dove into the rubble alongside the road, crawling her way into the shattered remains of the building before hastily ascending to the floor that FAL and 45 awaited in.
'Thirty seconds' 45 announced over the team's communications. 9 could feel the excitement bristle from every member of the team- the tension on the triggers, ready to explode into a flurry of violence.
The shotguns had cut the corner first, still in formation, and began advancing in a jog to take up a defensive position for the MG's to set themselves behind.
9 and 45 commanded their dummies to move and dodge, though no-where at their full capacity, trying to use what terrain they could to break line of sight. It made the enemy advance just that much further into the kill-zone to give chase.
The enemy echelon moved past the hide with confidence, none the wiser of what lay above them. The SMG dummies slowed, baiting the machineguns to take firing stance. They lined up, each preparing their fire as the shotgun dolls planted their shield-wall.
It was a joke- like looking at one of those old-timey battle lines of pavices and muskets.
A torrent of rubber tag rounds rained down upon the dummy UMP-9 and 45.
'Now.'
Out went two grenades, perfectly placed as the first volley of rifle bullets cracked off of the armored shields.
A smoke landed right in the middle of the machine-gun formation, the hiss of the fumes a prelude to the coming violence. Before the smoke had fully billowed, the flashbang burst just in front of the machine-guns while many of them fuddled with their bulky ammunition boxes.
And by the time their senses returned, the UMP twins were already in their midst, smoke coalescing as they moved like specters through it.
Close quarters battle was where they excelled with brutal efficiency. Doubly so when the enemy couldn't turn their guns inwards on one-another. A fun fact that 9 had learned from other training exercises, usually the first doll to react in a formation was the mainframe doll.
Go for the one that looks surprised first.
9 didn't use her firearm yet, instead taking a taser-knife to the PKP model first. How clumsily the machinegun doll moved when locked down in hand-to-hand. 9 had bound the smaller doll's arm before it could draw its own knife or command its dummies to draw theirs. She ran the taser's edge across the back of the PKP's neck, causing the whole unit to seize up.
Her sister had disposed of the MG5 at equal pace, and when the first group of dummy-links went dead, that was when they used dummy rounds to deal as much as they could to the final remaining machinegun team.
9 felt no pity or remorse for engaging in such painfully close ranges, this was for the commander's victory. To prove his words, to show that the lesson he gave were clear.
"Cut off the head and the body will die." Be it a mainframe doll, a field commander, or a civilian executive- it was the philosophy behind their prime operating directive.
The sisters had struck their deathblows within fifteen seconds and leapt back out by the time the next volley of M14's rounds started plugging away. Everything was perfectly synchronized, an efficiency that only machines could accomplish.
The exact moment the UMP twins cleared the minimum safe distance, FAL had emerged from the upper floor, firing off three rapid tag grenades and dispersing the smoke before pouring on fire from her dummies. It was a simple, brutal mopping up of the last dolls in the machine-gun line.
A loud echoing crack echoed from the distance announced that NTW found her mark.
'KSG down.' NTW announced over the line.
'MG's are all neutralized.' FAL countered with a buzzing smile, leaving the sniper team sending envious pings back.
'The shotguns are ours!' M14 protested, feeling that FAL was simply waiting to begin shooting the vulnerable backs presented to her.
'SAT down.' NTW announced before any of the others heard the report of her cannon- so assured she was in the snipe. The line of wild-haired blond shotguns crumpled just a second before the sound of the shot rang to them.
The electronic buzzer ran through their network, signalling an end to an overwhelmingly decisive victory. 9 was sure that she could hear M14's cheer out in the distance as everyone climbed down to street level.
"Good match." 9 passed by their opponents, giving a small wave.
"Tch." The Negev unit clicked her tongue, looking away with a painful expression stapled upon her face. She and her dummy's had been mercilessly riddled with rubber bullets, the impacts of which marring her otherwise impeccable white clothes. The rest of their echelon had the same dejected looks.
It would have been a righteous, well-deserved victory over a supposedly arrogant foe… but 9 simply couldn't pull herself to gloat. It was like an itch in her programming that she couldn't reach.
Of all the dolls present, FAL moved between the defeated group, quietly checking up on them. It left 9 and 45 stunned- they were dolls, not humans. Injuries, if you could call them that, were simply a matter of swapping out parts or paneling, unlike the painstaking process of waiting for a human to heal- and here FAL was moving about like a nurse.
"My apologies. In my carelessness I struck your leg functionality after you were already disabled." FAL had helped the MG5's mainframe doll to her feet, clearly labored by having to both diagnose herself, as well as her dummy links.
It continued like this, FAL helping diagnose the mainframe dolls hit hardest during the exercise. Even when NTW and M14 had joined back with them, FAL refused to depart for the landing zone until every single doll in the area was checked.
When 9 prodded her for a reason, FAL gave her a warm smile- the same smile that the auburn-haired angel had given 9 when she had first showed up as scattered mess on the base's perimeter.
"We do not leave comrades behind. Even if they are our opponents today, they could very well be our family tomorrow."
That word.
It sent a tingle through all of 9's systems. In an instant, 9 was hovering over the SAT-8 model that sat on the broken asphalt. There was a dent as big as 9's fist that formed a shallow bowl in part of the blonde's forehead. The shotgun doll was very consciously trying to cover it up with her bangs, not noticing that 9 was wide-eyed staring at it.
"Umm. Do you need help?" 9 crouched down, hugging her knees as she marveled at the damage that a twenty-millimeter dummy round dealt.
The SAT smiled, though it faltered once or twice.
"I-I-I'm fine, th-thanks."
It was an odd feeling that 9 couldn't match with anything that her emotion module had mapped. Hard to describe or put into her own words, but she settled on calling it a "tugging"- it drew her towards the doll she had marked in her IFF as enemy not more than five minutes ago. It wasn't… a negative feeling at least.
"I'm… sorry?" The words fumbled out of 9's mouth, though the SAT-8 didn't seem to notice the awkwardness that 9 was suffering from.
"It w-w-w...wasn't your fault." Half of the shotgun doll's face smiled, "It… i-it's our duty."
A chill ran through 9's neural pathways, originating from the link with her sister. She did her best to ignore it, offering the SAT-8 a hand up- or at least she tried, struggling against the weight of the shotgun doll's frame.
"Nine, come on, we gotta go! The commander is waiting for us!" M14 shouted back as the rest of the echelon moved for their landing zone.
9 sighed, giving up on pulling the SAT up, despite that aching feeling in her emotion module egging her on. She slaved her dummies to her once more, taking only a moment to watch the SAT-8 silently return to trying to cover up the dent.
"Um… see you around?"
"Y-yeah. See… you around…"
It felt… wrong? 9 frowned at her own thoughts. Unable to consolidate anything, she found herself in a process loop as she glared at the anomaly in her emotion module. Normally she would simply isolate, fragment, and mark it for deletion on the next maintenance but…
It wasn't harmful, it wasn't malicious, it didn't eat up her memory or processing like other corrupt data would. She left it there, quietly renaming the process something inconspicuous.
If it became a problem, she would just ask the commander. After all, emotions were a human's realm of expertise; he would know what the feeling was.