There was an idea that was running around my head for a while, other ideas kept piling on and I made this. Took a while because I am the worst procrastinator ever, but I made it.
I know this is probably a hundred year too early for the event of this story to happen since the Shen Long was developed in the last years of the 31st century compared to this story that started before 3020, so the timeline doesn't work but the plot bunny was insisting. It's the tale of a single skrimish in a wider campain on a planet between the Raiders and the Capellan and a tale on how bad intel can mean life or death for soldiers.
Not sure how to write a Capellan soldier either.
Here is a short story in hope it motivates the author and give him inspiration.
P.S. : don't hesitate to point out mistakes in the text, I am horrible with those and I tend to a lot of typos and my autocorrect is a drunk gremlin.
You got to be kitten me!"
Location: Frontier Space between the Capellan Confederation and the Free World League
Planet: *REDACTED*
Date: *REDACTED*
Despite the wonderfully clear weather and warm temperature, the forest was silent, the animals quiet and hiding after so much gunfire rang across the valley, probably still sniffing the gunpowder in the air.
The silence was only broken by the rhythmic stomps of four heavy metallic legs and small branches braking from a huge body moving at a rather energetic pace among the green foliage.
Garfield Cho was having a bad day. Scratch that, it was a horrible day. 'Keep the cliff to your right. Keep the cliff to your right. Don't let those blue bastard see you.' He kept chanting nervously in his mind.
He had found a 'barely there' animal trail only minutes ago, probably from some boar or deer, just wide enough to allow his elongated battle armor to pass between the trees without breaking too many branches and quickly made the decision to leave the swallow water he was previously using to mask his escape. The idea was that the cover of the trees would obscure him from observers while he was hoping he had stayed on rocky bed of the river long enough to not leave tracks. He was afraid that enough time had passed, and they might still have one of those strange VTOL's with the two side rotors to send after him. He prayed the summer foliage would be enough covers.
"If I can make it five click south, I will be able to circumvent hill..." a quick glance to his map and compass told him this was "...yeah this is hill 6-754-b, so around west and then south some more to find the planned road for the convoy. If I can regroup, I'll be safe."
'And hopefully never going back...'
What a poor sight he must look right now. The turret on the back of his beautiful Shen Long armor, torn off at the swivel, leaving him without any weapons. The armor, still covered in mud in some places, was completely screwed, with pock marks from who knows how many bullets on one side, the other almost completely scorched off while his best advantage of getting out alive, the Mimetic function, was sending a constant stream of error messages to his Hud. From what he saw from the external camera, it was barely flickering on and off.
It was part of the reason why he was taking a longer road to rejoin his allies and didn't dare to open communication with his appointed Lance or Command, he was following the number one rule his squad leader had dismissed:
'Never give those 'Watch Towers' a direct line of sight'.
Initially the attack on this world was serving as a distraction to retake another one from those scum Leaguers. Words in the ranks were telling how the campaign was going very well for us, that the League were fighting amongst themselves again, preventing a proper response. The Chancellor surely saw the opportunity and it was soon apparent the Confederation started pouring more and more effort on taking this one as well.
And in turn, the House responsible for this planet made a deal with a most enigmatic mercenary group called the Raynor's Raider's to secure its northern industrial sector of this continent, so the main forces could concentrate on the already open fronts.
His fellow comrade says that for days, the north sky was illuminated by the streaks of re-entry burns. Air and space uncontested from the might of so many aerospace fighters escorting giant dropships and humongous crates falling from the sky across the province, like it was some kind of Star League fairy-tale.
This was no mercenary group; it was an army that landed along the deep and mighty river that divided this part of the continent from the north and south and they utterly stopped every attempt to cross we've made. The few existing bridge? Either destroyed or defended tighter than ComStar money vaults. Islands or the sections that were shallow enough for mechs to cross? Even fewer and they now had fortresses waiting on the other side. The ports were in shambles with wrecks and sea mine blocking them, none of the boats and ferries under our controls and no words from high command that they could bring some from another planet in a timely manner.
And yet they made no attempt at attacking or getting involved further in the conflict beside stopping us from crossing or protecting peoples fleeing to the now safe province. Words from the few spies we had said that the Raiders were working with the local authorities with securing the refugee camps and distributing foods blankets and amenities as well.
Just what kind of mercenaries were they?
And with the skies theirs and geography on their side, it was either trying to circumvent the great river origins inland around a series of great lakes that would take many weeks at best and were also, in fact quite behind the Free World Leagues lines, futilely loose more Capellan lives trying to breach the Raiders new fortification or try to get around via this world only ocean, which the planet Navy controlled.
If nothing was done, the planet defenders would keep getting food and equipment from the industries over there and the Free Worlds League would eventually get their shit together and send enough reinforcement to make this endeavor a sunk cost fallacy.
To say this infuriated the High command was a euphemism is like declaring water is wet and the Federated Suns are 'holier than thou'. This naturally could not stand so even more efforts, men, mechs and resources were spent trying to hasten the conquest.
That's why Cho deployment to this planet was rushed and hodgepodge in his opinion. His original platoons had taken too many casualties and many of his comrades were in the hospital, so it was decided that it would be disbanded and the few remaining reorganized between various others. Cho had met his new squad mates only days ago when he arrived on this forsaken mud ball and had no time to get to know them, but when the State gave orders, you followed them for the good of all.
But he should have trusted his gut feeling about the new squad leader. He looked too self-important and made no illusion that Cho was an outsider, treating him with barely hidden contemp. And seeing how he handled himself earlier... Cho wouldn't even have to find a way to demote the bastard for a promotion with him being very dead now...
If only that son of three fathers hadn't been so dismissive of the briefing as well.
Oh yes. The briefing. A whole afternoon has been used to inform new arrivals about the so called 'Raynor Raiders' because apparently, the mysterious group that came from who knows where, had more advanced equipment and threw more ordinance than what a Great House should be able to make in a year and that the average Raider grunt must be shiting Lostech for them to have so much. It sounded insane and out of a bad Star League Romance novel. Every man of the line had a power armor and a Support level weapon. Impossible tanks, unknow types of vehicles and aero-fighters, mother fucking LAM everywhere in the sky, entire vehicles that can cloak, missiles turrets going up in a single days, Mech of unknown models and those that were known were mercenaries the mercenaries hired to do their mercenaries jobs because apparently, when you are obviously so well funded by a mysterious backers to have all that shit, you can afford to sub-contract other mercenary companies.
Ridiculous.
The ONLY consolation them being here would be that the Free World Leagues must be paying through the nose for all that meat and metal, their war chest will be emptier than a Kurita sense of humour.
Where was he... Oh yes, the briefing. There was one part that concerned Cho and his new unit the most and that was these new Watch Towers the Raiders were installing along the bank of the river. Through unknown technology so far, it was said that their Capellan cloaking technology and Mimetic armors were less effective around these, so they were marked for priority destruction and given the following instruction:
''Do not enter line of sight with these watch towers when dealing with them and observe radio silence.''
Like it was simplest thing to do! The Maskirovka apparently had both thumbs up their asses on this one because 'less effective around these towers' should have been 'don't work at all'!! And this stupid idiot of a lieutenant treated that news like it was a joke. Well look where it got him.
Soon after this, Cho unit along with his new so-called lieutenant were assigned to a full Augmented Lance. The other squads being composed of Fa Shih armor would accompany the mech Lance more closely to support them while they were sent ahead of a full convoy of artillery, battle engineer, Armored vehicles and many more platoons of infantry. The idea was that if we couldn't cross at the usual places, we would make our own means of crossing. While the bulk of reinforcement was sent to the main front for a push as a distraction, we had the mission to get to an already destroyed bridge so the engineers could build a new one.
Air reconnaissance and scouts reported the defences around were considerably thinner than the other places, the destroyed bridge giving it a lower priority among the stretched resources. We expected only a few militias and a minor Raider outpost to defend it. Said outpost and Raiders, which were by the way, very easily spotted, had the arrogance and the cocksure of painting everything they own a bright blue like they were the bastard reject of a Steiner scout lance.
Maybe when your infantry linemen could take shots from a mech weapon and live to flip them off, you didn't care what colors you were painted.
The plan was to get ahead of the convoy, clear a nearby hill to install the artillery, pound the defenders and we would swoop in to destroy the rest on this side of the river while calling in air strikes to clear the other bank for our engineers to use the wreckage of the old bridge to build a temporary one. The rest of the troops would be right behind the first convoy, the bridge ready for crossing when they arrived.
Simplicity itself.
Right.
The terrain around the theater was a low height mountain range, more like a series of hills, valley and tributary rivers and the road leading there was quite serpentine, so we had plenty of cover. With scouts already in places, the artillery had already split from the group to get on hill 6-887-j, chosen because of the old ski station situated there the ramp and clear slope giving easy access to the desired position. At the last moment, they would crest the top and start shelling the enemy while the Mech would do their usual dance and finish them off with us harassing their position.
Even earlier than that, the Lance commander ordered us, the Shen Long unit to circumvent another hill to the East then two others north before joining the bank and hitting them from the flank. Maybe it was because he didn't want all of us to take the same direct approach and we could navigate the forest more stealthily. Or maybe he felt something was off and wanted to make sure, who knows at this point.
Following orders, we started our trek at a decent pace, using the valley to make our way around the first hill having found a steep cliff hanging over the same tributary river that would save my life later. We stayed at the top of the cliff still in the forest, deeming the ground below too open to our taste and stayed in the trees, the terrain not too difficult to navigate with plenty of battery left to accomplish our mission.
It was Dimitri who was at the front who spotted by chance between two trees, the metallic spire almost hidden among the canopy, right on the very top of the next hill
The only human installation nearby was supposed to be the road on the other side and the old ski station north west. Things like power lines, radio towers and the likes were all to the west of the roads which was why the Lance commander had chosen this approach for us since there was no installation worth mentioning so less attention should have been given.
The Lieutenant called for a halt, and we used the cameras of the armor to zoom in on the object. There was no mistaking it, it was one of those Raider towers we were shown in the briefing. If it was placed there it could potentially mean it was surveying the road the convoy was going to take.
It wasn't supposed to be there. At all. Photos taken from orbit and from reconnaissance planes from only two days ago showed no metal tower there. The scouts had reported no deviation form the maps they were given.
What the in the actual fuck was going on? Who could install a ugly high-tech metal monstrosity in the middle of nowhere, with no roads what so ever, without being spotted, in less than one day?!
So far, the Raider had made no showing of leaving the damn river so what was this doing this much south? Was this a precursor of finally getting off their pretty blue base and getting involved in the conflict? No-no-no, this was simply something like a weird radar tower after all, it was probably put there to give advance warning of incoming hostiles.
We were faced with a decision. With the order of radio silence in the vicinity of those towers, we couldn't simply call the commander. Going back the way we came toward the road might had taken too long, even if we dropped all pretense of stealth once we were out of sight.
If we cut West across that hill and the previous one in hope of sending a tight beam message to the rest, we would be easily spotted. Same goes with someone disembarking from the armor to be a smaller target, it offered no guarantee that they wouldn't be spotted or that they would make it in time without the armor speed.
Getting to the river by going down the cliff that was even steeper over here and use the geography to not be seen had the same previous problem of being too in the open and with a higher chance of spotters keeping watch now that we knew they were in the sector.
The window was small but retreating and warning the commander was the smartest option.
Of course, that's why the lieutenant chose to focus on the other half of the orders: those towers were marked for priority destruction. Despite my protest he insisted that we had to go up there and destroy the ugly thing. He bragged on about how he used the armor camouflage to walk up to a Federated camp once that he could see the watchmen eye colors or that once his previous units ran circles around Leaguers mechs for hours. He said that Intelligence was spooked over nothing and had not idea how things were in the field, that nobody would catch us, and we should trust in our machines
The Asshole was just after the achievement for a quick promotion. But he was the superior officer and he and the others were together in this unit for a much longer time than I knew them, so my opinion had less weight.
Orders were orders and when your country called, you answered.
Powering the camouflage system, we slowly made our way forward, using as much cover as possible towards the east flank of the hill still following the cliff to our right. It was the only flank that was remotely accessible with our armor to get close enough for our SMR to reach the thing without trees in the way. The explosion should alert the Mech commander as well.
The group started to turn toward the tower that was now due West of us when a grenade exploded a few dozen meters in front of the group and all hell broke loose and became a confusing mess of screams and fire. Emphasis on the fire.
The grenade had come from right above us from the flank of the hill and judging from the low downward arc, using their superior elevation to lazily shoot at us. If the grenade hadn't clipped a poorly placed shrub on the way down and making it flop, it would have landed right in the middle of our group. How could they have been seeing us with the camouflage on? We do not know, and I suspect that damned tower was responsible.
The lieutenant screamed his order to take cover as a veritable hail of tracers saturated the air around us like it was the Founder Day fireworks as we split our group in two, each Shen Longs armor kicking, almost jumping really, for the side to find something to protect us. We were lucky in our misfortune, while a few bullets pinged on our armors, the firepower was in no way concentrated on any of us and the side of the hill had enough trees and vegetation to help obscure our forms and plenty of boulders and rocky formation to hide.
Dimitri was with me to the right of the path, a bit below me behind a boulder three time his size, while personally I made my armor dive for a small ridge, making it crouch, the belly sliding in the dirt, the on coming fire now to my left flank. It was barely tall enough to hide my four David Light Gauss Rifles on my armor back and I was essentially stuck here unless I try to make a run for better cover. With the amount of dirt raining on me right now, this sound like a bad idea.
A quick glace at my display and rotate the various body camera, I check for damage to update my status to the Lieutenant. Mimetic Camo system is sending me small glitches and I got three confirmed hits: left shoulders, left flank and the upper part of the left hip. Glancing blows from the look of it but I shudder at the amount of damage the armor took from simply three bullets. These motherfuckers were all packing Support level weaponry.
Supposedly all their infantry were in battle armor and were all equip with Support Weapons, making of heavy use of Gauss machinegun of all things! If we did nothing, they would chew through our plating like hard candy.
I flip through my various cameras across my armor to take stock of our surrounding while simultaneously trying to raise the captain on the coms which rewarded me with the horrible sound of someone jamming our communication.
Somehow, they knew we were here and didn't jam our coms to not alert us until we were close enough to take a shot. But with how spread the initial fire was, we had evidence they didn't knew our exact location, just our general direction, meaning the camo system worked but they were still able to detect us… Fuck those towers and fuck the Lieutenant being glory seeking asshole!!
Speaking of, I spotted him with my rear camera around 20 meter behind me, facing toward the cliff while using a couples of rocks and the angle of the terrain to shoot upward with brief volley of his four machines guns. Mamadou, our fourth teammate had to go even further left to find cover and looked like he was aiming his MRM launcher at the same target as the Lieutenant. With no communication, coordination or good view of where the enemies were at, I flexed my Shen Long legs just enough to pop my turret right about the ridge and did a sweep, trusting the system to help me spot targ-oooollly shiiiiit we just kicked the hornet nest.
There was a fucking bunker, partially buried under a rock crop of the hill guarding the part up the hill to the 'watch tower' and Mamadou rockets barely scuffed the thing merely burning away all the camouflage that was put on it. From the reports of the conflict so far and the Raiders usual M.O. this addition was probably from the local militia, the reports have shown they made expert use of the practice aaaaand speak of the Marik and they will appeal, just great.
Around a dozen or so militiamen were fanned to the southwest amongst the trees taking pot shots at us with SRM launchers which I promptly denied them the opportunity by opening fire, shredding the tree and one of the soldiers behind it and promptly ducking back down to let the return fire, which I think was from the bunker.
We're not equipped to tackle a fortified position like this, it's suicide. Better try to lure what enemies we can away from the position and take them apart one by one.
Another grenade exploded nearby, probably targeting Dimitri, so I popped back up trying to find whoever was lobbing grenade while doing suppression fire on the militiamen, a much more acceptable target for my weapons. My camera flagged me some movement behind the treeline, and I saw what looked like two Light industrial mechs, painted blue of unknown make, sneaking behind the militia. They were seemingly going towards what was a more elevated position.
Shit, if they were armed with something heavier that could take out our position, we would be done for. We have no com and I needed to signify my teammates, so I decided to break protocols and flipped open the outside speakers at max volume to break over the noise of the battle.
"LIEUTENANT, TWO MECH, ELEVEN O'CLOCK, UP THE HILL!!"
That not only got the attention of my squad but also every goddam sonofabitch with a gun took a shot a me that I could not get up for what felt like an eternity but in reality, it was only took a four second to see the Lieutenant and Mamadou spotted what I had seen and received a confirmation in the form of a two flash from the Shen Long headlights. Popping back up for a quick shot, I managed another kill on the militiamen and tried to zoom on what the mechs were up to while my teammates were content exchanging fire
What I saw chilled me. While I couldn't identify any weapons on the strange looking Industrial mech, I saw them with the help of a few infantrymen in the process of removing a wide camouflage tarp from what looked like a VTOL. If that took off, it us off one by one.
I tried to shoot that group, but I didn't have a good angle and that damned bunker was focusing on Dimitri position, preventing him from using his missiles and very soon he would have to move because his cover was crumbling at a very alarming rate. I joined the Lieutenant in shooting at the bunker in hope of getting an opportunity when an explosion in the corner of my vision surprised me. The VTOL had received a cockpit kill just before it could take off! I had I lost track of Mamadou and being the off to the side allowed him to reposition and take it out with his MRM!! That was our chance! Without a flyer, we will be able to make our escape and use the camo system to shake off any pursuer. If we press on, we could contact the convoy again and – oh. Shit.
Any hope I had was silenced by the ungodly noise of an over-revving gasoline engine drowning the rest of the world, time seemed to slow down as I saw what looked like a Light reconnaissance vehicle, one of those more adapted to sand operation, yeah that it, an armored dune buggy with a horribly overcompensating Flammer on top, going down the hill from the top like a mad man, accelerating and jumping from a rock cropping like a mad man… right at me.
While I tried to duck down under cover as the buggy landed right on top of the ridge I was hiding behind and I thought the crash would kill me as I was jostled around in the cramped habitable of my Shen Long, but instead of crushing me, the vehicle bumper clipped my turret and as I lost all sense of up and down, my battle armor rolling and dragging under the wheels and undercarriage of the vehicle.
I was the most surprised of all when I was freed from that tumbling hell, still alive, upside, with my still functioning armor legs under me. Was probably the only thing working, the main screen angrily flashing red, screaming alarms right in my face notification constantly popping but the most important thing was that I could sill move, and I knew I needed to find cover once again
I could see Dimitri armor, now higher than me on the hill side still behind his crumbling boulders, probably as surprised as I was from seeing a wheeled vehicles this deep in the wood and on this kind of terrain. Uhg, I must have hit my head if I was concerned by such pointless detail… and where was that fucking crazy menace on wheel? It couldn't be down hill unless it had chosen to suicide jump from the cliff into the river below. Where… I could not stay there; bullets were starting to rain down again.
So, I pushed my armor up and turned to face the hill in order to reduce my profile and I was rewarded by my cameras getting blinded by what could only be described as a second sun judging from the heat I was feeling right through the armor. The heat filters on my camera engaged, and I was able to see why I was freed from that death slide. That hellish contraption had taken a sharp turn to avoid Dimitri rock, dislodging me in the process and almost did a 180 to rearend my asshole of a Lieutenant and ram both itself and him in a tree like it wanted to donut it around the trunk and in total abandon of sanity, proceeded to roast it's own bumper, the Shen Long, my Lieutenant, the tree, the forest behind it and probably any militiamen left in it.
The vehicle back was facing me and completely defenceless… I moved my Shen Long, so it was between me and the bunker up hill to use it as a shield while trying to shoot it's open back as retaliation for what it did to me, but nothing happened, the trigger unresponsive. Panicking, I checked my console again to only NOW realize some of the alerts I was receiving were not about my turret being damage but completely gone. A quick glance in the rocky furrow the skid under the frame of that overcompensating pyromaniac was that my turret got torn off and lay mangled in it.
Turns out I shouldn't have concerned myself with trying to take the enemy down because at that moment, my leftover teammates had decided to avenge their commanding officer and sandwiched the buggy between a salvo of missiles each. Normally I wouldn't have worried about my proximity to the explosion, even damaged my armor should have been able to tank the nearby explosion.
But whatever juice they were using in that Flammer did not react well to missiles because as a result, the giant ball of fire that engulfed me felt like my skin was going to come off and for the second time that day, I was pushed down hill right off the cliff, down the slope through vegetation and the dirt and into the muddy bank of the river bellow.
The mud had snuffed out the fire sticking to my armor and while I probably hit everything on the way down, the damage taken wasn't enough to keep me from running even if it was limping a little from the rear left. In this state, there was no way I could pursue the mission and the sound of battle had continued for a while after I was gone. I did not put much stock on my teammates having survived so I was up to me to report what we learned and warn the Lance commander.
Well, no way he didn't caught the sight of that explosion, so I should consider them warned of the trouble ahead. The commander probably ordered double time on the march now that the jig was up, and time was of the essence before the ene-what was that?
Something just flashed on my left. It looked kind of…
And being momentarily distracted by what could be behind me, I barely registered that I broke through a small clearing, the sudden increased lighting made me look forward only for me to pull on the breaks so hard I thought I was going to break the lever.
Something deep blue was on the other side of the clearing, still in the under-bush shadow and laying low, the garish color too bright for me to miss it. Raider's Blue.
I was now in the open, I was probably going to be shot at and the thicker foliage around me only a second of a dash away. If I go right, I risked getting stuck with the cliff at my back and no where to run, so I quickly jammed the control left to angle my Shen Long toward the river where I would have more space and I did not take two step that the ferns over there parted to reveal three menacing shape that tickled some of the most primal instinct in my human brain, something integrated deeply into it since our ancestors lived in trees and ate fruits.
It did not as much walk, more like it languidly strolled, shoulders rolling and hips swaying, the three figures starting to fan counterclockwise. A quick turn about only reveled the initial figure having gotten out as well as five others, surrounding me.
My mind did not want to process what it was seeing.
'Did they really put FUCKING TIGERS IN BATTLE ARMORS!!!!!!?'
What? Nonononono, it was as impossible as it was ridiculous. Those must be remote controlled drones or or or… robots? But the way they move is so life like!! What kind of bad B-movie was this? Are you telling me those mercenaries have enough Lostech to make tiger robot half the size of my armor! They… wha?
I was very much put back into focus as I heard a growl. Yes. A mother fucking growl. One of those diesel engines like rumble that shake your ribcage.
Some sickos probably got a laugh thinking if they added a growl like real giant cat as well it would be very intimidating.
They were absolutely right.
Assholes.
Whatever those cat robot things were, they acted in coordination, slowly walking around me in a circle. I kept trying to keep most of them if my field of vision, but it was obvious they were looking for an opening while I was focussed on another. Shit. They might be smaller than my armor but I would have bet a month ration that those robots were probably strong enough to tear through my armors, those teeth and claws didn't look for show. If I did nothing, they were going to open my battle armor like a cat food can and get the chicken inside!
'They are getting more agitated! There are sparks? Tasers? There is lighting jumping from one to the others!!! They are all electrified, my systems will fry!'
'I have to get away! I am surrounded!!!'
'I have no weapon! What do I DO!?'
'Am I going to die by robots that act like tigers? Metallic cats that want to eat my own cat like armor because they think theyarecatsmadeofmetalsthatshouldeedtoeatmetal? THEYARECA… they act… like… cats…'
In that moment, Garfield Cho was staring straight at his doom, hyperventilating and focusing despite his somewhat concussed mind on the blue reflected on the armor hue caused by the lightning arcing across the robotic felines, his whole world was engulfed by the vision of a simulacre re-creating the very nature of a predator, something that lurked in the dark and hunted humanity, haunting their nightmares. And by an insane leap of terror induced logic, the panicking mind of the Capellan soldier, those same terrifying nightmares brought forth memories of his childhood, superposing this forest clearing on a forsaken planet with the streets of his hometown where he spent his youth playing outside, where stray cats lounged in the sun, playing in alleyway, walking on fences and interacting with each other.
And in a stroke of what could be considered a moment of pure genius or the most stupid thing possible to do in this situation…
Garfield Cho opened his armor speakers.
.
.
.
"Meow"
He did not know who was the most startled between him and the robotic cats when they all stopped in their tracks, lightning dying out and managing the feat off looking confused despite their solid, one-piece metallic face.
"Meaaaaooww" Cho carefully manipulated the control of his quad battle armor to lower it on the ground, pawing at the dirt in what he hoped to be a playful manner. He continued to make kitten sound, desperately trying to recall how the young furry babies interacted with those adult cats, doing everything he could to appear submissive and unthreatening, putting his FULL BEING into being an innocent kitten, HE WAS THE KITTEN!!! Using every bit of dexterity in the battle armor articulation to wiggle and tumble on his side, pawing the air like he was swatting butterflies.
And miraculously, the great predators surrounding him did not know how to react, backing off probably due to a lack of understanding what was happening in front of them looking at each other as if they were asking between themselves what they were supposed to do.
And from Cho opinion, it must have been the performance of a lifetime because after and what seemed an agonizing eternity, the great blue tigers left towards the enemy base, certainly looking for another battle armor.
He waited another minute to make sure they were truly gone despite the risk of being spotted from above, righted his battle armor on it's stomach, got up and bolted away at full speed like a bat outta hell.
In the confine of his armor, laying in a very wet bodysuit, Garfield Cho was cheering and screaming in joy and only the alien bird and critters were witness of his very shrill disbelieving proclamation.
"I CAN'T BELIVE THAT WORKED!!!"
EPILOGUE
Location: The Hyperion Battlecruiser.
Date: #Classified#
"I cannot believe that worked. What the hell did I just saw?"
Jim was starring at the screen sitting in the conference room, multiple video recording of all the Predators involved in the incident after a forward detection post had a skirmish with a Capellan infiltration squad in some of those strange quad battle armors.
They were now well after the campaign and the Capellan were repelled from the planet, Adjuvant was doing his designated job of helping to manage the Raiders army, crunching numbers for the true cost of the operation, calculated in broken equipment, bullets spent, fuel consumed, damage taken. Statistics of blood, life and money rolled across the digital landscape, compiling reports after reports in parallels as they were coming in, archiving and classifying each instance recorded of the conflict until an incongruity from multiple 'Predator' anti-infantry units all signaled the same impossible thing, raising a worrying flag in his logic processors.
He immediately reported the incident to his commanding officers.
Jim turned toward Swann and Stockman who they had called on after they looked at the reports and were left with incomprehension.
Swann and Stockman looked in incredulity as the rest of the people in the room. They looked at each other and opened the tabs of operational logs of the Predators trying to make head and tails of the programming. After some hushed debates and pointing at the screen and claw shaking in air, they found a very strange answer.
"Well cowboy, it looks like one of the 'Friend-or-foe' failsafe was triggered when he started acting like… well like that. Specifically, it's the one that deal with recognizing other Predators units."
"Are you telling us it mistook that for another Predator? It looks absolutely nothing like one!"
Stockman decided to answer that one. "It's more complicated than that. Predators' units have multiple sensors to detect an enemy but rely mostly on the visual processors to identify targets to attack and detect weapons or threatening behaviors. The A.I. is trained to recognise multiple scenarios and situation that trigger a response in the decision tree. But if it relied only on that, they would simply attack everything around them because after all, what else resemble like a CMC-armor than another CMC amor? To distinguish friend or foe it uses signals from microchips we have put in all our equipment, the same one used in the CMC our Marines use that help designate targets to prevent friendly fire." He paused to see if Jim was following him so far.
"Yeah, I know the system. It supposed to be encrypted so nobody can simulate a friendly signal and slip in without raising the alarm. Anyone without the proper code get immediately flagged. Did the Capellan broke the code?"
"Don't worry cowboy", reassured Swann. "The encryption on those is practically impossible to crack and the chips are black boxed to hell and back. It's mase to so that any attempt at trying to log in or bypass the system will wipe the codes and self-destruct the system."
Stockman continued his lecture "Exactly, we cannot let anyone get access to our identification keys but let me ask you, what if the signal is lost? Or the system is broken due to damage? How does an A.I. like Predator isn't attacking everything without a friendly signal? Well, it all goes back to the friend-or-foe identification failsafe. It uses the same system that identify targets and judge if the target carries a weapon or act threatening. You know the Predators models across the Korpulu sector are used as security units to guard stuff, like warehouse, military bases, etc. There are even those that uses them to guard civilian homes."
Swann chipped in. "And if you use it in an environment like the civilian districts, you need to be certain that it won't start attacking things like, you know random stuff like children, passing cars, small animals, the wildlife, etc. It got a huge part of its processors to identify everything around him and a lot of the programming is dedicated to what is acceptable behavior or what constitute an enemy. Which lead to quite an infamous case for those in the robotic sector. What if you have two Predators from two different compagnies? Ha! You catch on quick Jim; they tore into each other and caused a huge lawsuit."
Stockman nodded. "Yes, it came very clear very soon that there was a need to include a way for a Predator to recognise another Predator when a unit came across another one and there was a chance it couldn't send a friendly signal. It will first identify the shape than identify it's behavior like if it's violent towards him if it's trying to flee, etc. It does the same as with anything else really but there is one last component when it comes to the Predators… You need to do another loops back, to the civilian sector this time, when they programmed the robots to act like the thing they were modelled after, in this case big semi-feral cats because they think it's cute. Urrrrrrgh, people I swear… Anyway, you saw them in the hanger, right? They sit around in a pack and act all threatening to those they pass by. Or when they are set to patrol with a marine, they act all protectively like a family pet? Well because they programmed the behavior of a trained pet in them, the Predators also have entire other subroutine to read the way the other unit act like a different cat depending on how it acts due to its orders.
He pulled up the image of the quad battle armor on the holographic display and overlayed the detection sequence of one of the Predator. "Here we see the analysis it did and before you point out again that it does look like a Predator at all, you must remember it's a relatively simple A.I. we are dealing with. It made to learn and recognise certain shapes with a wide margin of errors. Here look: Quadruped with digitigrade legs, reverse knees, stifle joint on the back legs, no tail but that can be accounted as a lost limb so it's within the margin of errors, the body is an elongated shape, a tad funny but without the turrets it get a general pass as if the head was kind of pulled back… to put it simply from a Predator perspective, we are looking a very strong uncanny valley feeling but since they are simple A.I. it's not something they can feel.
"And then you have this crazy guy in a cat suit acting like a cat which triggered the cat-behavior identification sub-routine that flagged the thing as a damaged but neutral civilian unit."
Nobody said anything for a while, starring once more at the video feed.
Jim got up from his chair and turned toward his chief engineering and scientific officers and told them: "I don't know if this is the luckiest guy in the galaxy or what, but I want that loophole patched by the time we face those battle armors again."
His two officers could only nod in agreement.