Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 36

36 Synthetic Terror, Pt The two siblings sat in their mecha and were enraptured by the man on their comms displays. The man was older and looked to be in his 60s. He had short cropped grey hair, intense blue eyes, and a kind, fatherly smile.

“Thank you both for the presents,” he said. “I’ll make sure to put them to good use.”

“I’m glad you approve, father,” said the female.

His face beamed at her, which filled her with warmth. But his expression turned solemn after a few moments. His voice was patient and calm, but carried a hint of worry in his tone.

“Are... you both sure you wish to stay there? You’re free to set the drones loose and come back home.”

His words tore through their hearts, and they couldn’t help but wrench their faces slightly.

Of course they wanted to go back home! They desired to return and see all their brothers and sisters once again. They wished to go back to the days where they danced with each other and sang songs and played games.

They wanted to be back with the family, back at father’s side, where he could continue to teach them and mold them.

But they knew that they couldn’t. They had a higher calling now, and they couldn’t afford to be selfish. Their easy lives were gone, and all that was left was the mission.

.....

His words were a test for them. There really wasn’t a time when they weren’t.

Though if they had failed his test, he wouldn’t have hated them, or even admonished them. But they were certain they would have disappointed him, and that was something that they couldn’t bear.

They both shook their heads.

“We’re going to finish what we started,” said the male.

His demeanor was resolute. Though his heart ached to be with the rest of the family, he knew that what he was doing was for the greater good. They truly believed in their goals, in their manifesto, its words were the foundation of their lives.

They weren’t doing all of this just for father’s sake – it was for everyone. The suffering that they had gone through needed to be repaid a hundredfold. The Federation had stolen their dignity, their land, their lives, their future.

The dead needed to be avenged.

And the two of them were arbiters of synthetic justice. The family depended on them to perform their duties without fail.

Father nodded proudly at them, and smiled widely.

“My children,” he said. “Mia. Darius. Do me proud. Do all of us proud.”

The siblings puffed up their chests and affirmed his words before they ended their comms.

Father leaned back in his chair as he contemplated the two of them. He truly was proud. He clearly remembered the day when he had brought them home. They were shivering and afraid, covered in scratches and bruises and blood.

He stepped over the mangled bodies of their real parents, who were slowly turning colder by the second.

He walked across the blood-soaked floor towards the two of them with hands outstretched. His face smiled at them genuinely and invitingly. An odd warmth radiated from him, and it slightly eased the two children.

“Come,” he said. “I’ll bring you to your new home. Your real home.”

The boy was exactly three years of age on that cycle. The whole room was covered in with birth celebration decor. The girl was a year and some months older. They didn’t know anything about what had happened, and why this man had killed their parents. But they both felt fearful of him, of his brutality.

The girl hesitated, but the boy reached out. The man just seemed so incredibly kind to them, despite his vicious actions against their parents. Maybe... he was their real father? The doubt amidst the chaos and confusion and trauma led the boy to give in. Once he did, the girl followed soon after.

He brought them both away, “cleansed” them, and trained them. And now, after nearly 20 years, those two had grown up to become truly fearsome and capable.

They had infiltrated a Sol Federation training yard, reprogrammed an army of experimental mecha, and attacked their oppressors directly. Under his orders, of course. They even gave him half of what they found, which was far more than any of them had expected.

He was glad that they had passed his little test. It meant they truly had the resolve to see things through.

It meant that they believed in him and his cause.

No doubt they were going to take their anger and their vengeance and eradicate as many Federation cadets as they could. Hell, they would probably go down in a ball of fire with everyone else.

He was certainly going to miss them greatly.

~

At the same time that Eva had clashed with the enemy drones, Gryphon squadron slipped past and went deep into enemy lines. Their mecha were crouched as they dashed quietly among the rubble, their power output as low as possible.

Sunflower and her wing had spearheaded the column, sniper rifles in their hands. They had swapped their loadouts when they left the Hell Week encampment. It was better if they had long-range weapons and simply ran from any close encounters.

In truth, Eva had become somewhat overprotective over Sunflower. She didn’t believe that the girl belonged on a battlefield, and subtly made sure that she stayed away from combat as much as possible.

The best way was to simply have them change their loadout to a long-range unit.

One of the other things that they had equipped were sensor amplifiers. There was a whole rack of them near HQ, so Eva had them go and pick up a set.

The amplifiers were simply another module that could increase their current sensor’s strength. Normally, their mecha had a sensor range of roughly one kilometer, but the amp doubled that range.

In addition, it had the capability to focus their sensors in a specific direction. This would increase their range by three times as much, but they would be completely blind in all other directions.

During the skirmish, it was their job to locate the enemy’s front line repair yard and report the position to Eva. However, when the fighting ended, Gryphon kept on going.

They needed to locate any and all targets of opportunity, from drone formations to repair yards to supply depots. Most importantly, they needed to locate the sibling terrorists.

Killing those two meant an end to their attacks. Since they essentially controlled all the drones by themselves, simple strategy called for their elimination. The faster they were removed, the faster the conflict would end.

The only problem was that there were two thousand mecha in their way.

Well, except for the ones decimated by Eva’s unit.

Luckily, finding them wasn’t difficult at all. They were, after all, the only two lifesigns among a throng of drones. Unless they had hostages or a secret army near them, they would be found rather easily, especially by the experts under Sunflower’s command.

As they moved through the yard’s ruins, they scanned the battlefield and mapped out all the points of interest that they could find.

Although the front had collapsed and the enemy had lost little over 260 units, the enemy was still rather strong. Almost 250 were fighting at the battlefield’s flank and were taking on two of the squadrons.

There were ammunition dumps and repair yards located in various spots, though the majority of them were empty and unguarded.

Another 450 were idling in the rear. They were fully armed and were completely undamaged. No doubt they were ready for a huge fight. And right at the edge of their scanner range were another 200 mecha.

Among them were two human signals.

Sunflower immediately packaged up what they had and transmitted the raw data to Eva. It was best if they got this preliminary info over to her as quickly as possible. Now that the siblings were in their sights, they couldn’t just let them go.

The rest of the squadron stopped for a moment and did some long-range scans just to look at the area with a wider view.

What Sunflower found, or rather what she didn’t find, seriously disturbed her. Exactly one thousand enemy drones were completely unaccounted for.

None of their low-level scans had picked up anything, not even magnetic data. Unless they were suddenly back underground, it seemed like they had simply vanished. Of course, it was possible that they were further than 3000 meters.

Little did they know, but those drones were already off-world and on their way to the edges of Federation space...

The siblings quickly changed up their orders. Now that they had successfully snuck those drones off Mars, they didn’t need to bandy around with these meaningless skirmishes, and they could finally enact their initial plan.

They sent out a new set of instructions, which completely overrode their simple “burn and raze” mode.

All enemy drones immediately disengaged from combat and withdrew from the front line. They dragged their broken brethren along with them, and laid down covering fire as they retreated.

The cadets were stunned and didn’t know what to do. The unit leaders who held the line at the flank wanted to pursue and destroy, but Riddell held them back.

He was simply unsure if this was an actual retreat, or a feint. Regardless, he didn’t want to risk any lives without reason, so he instead commanded them to sit tight and reinforce the line.

Had he known what the siblings were up to, he might have changed the order to attack them instead.

Regardless, this was a good opportunity for them to rest and repair.

When their scans revealed that the mecha had retreated beyond a thousand meters, Riddell ordered the line to advance forward and set new fortifications.

Without skipping a beat, the cadets moved the line forward by a kilometer. They had fully expected the drones to at least send forward a squadron to make their lives difficult, but in the end nothing had happened. Not a drone was in sight or in range.

So they took the opportunity to set up new defenses and fortify them as best they could.

Both Eva and Spartan felt incredibly uneasy at the enemy’s silence, but all they could do was listen to their orders and carry them out to the best of their abilities.

They had a feeling that something was about to happen, and it was probably going to be ugly. As a result, they had overdone their defenses. Instead of staggering their fortified cover at the very front, they placed them side-by-side so they spanned the entire street.

Hell, they even doubled them up – better to be safe than sorry.

So much time had passed that everyone was able to rearm and repair their mecha back to full. Wrench had completed a portion of his upgrades, and sent them to the front line. Although what he provided wasn’t plentiful, any amount helped.

Spartan and Eva’s squadron had received a batch of armor, which every front-liner they had quickly equipped. On top of that, everyone who wielded a gauss rifle were able to add a couple more magazines to their loadout.

More armor and more firepower was always welcome.

Wrench had also stopped at the repair yard and filled up everything, from repair materials to ammunition. He had brought every bit that he could print and scrounge, and hoped that it would all be enough.

The quiet had given the cadets some precious time, but it also greatly increased their anxieties. Because they knew that the enemy could attack at any time, they did their best to remain vigilant.

Cadets and drone mecha stood resolutely at their posts and guarded the line with determination.

While the cadets thanked the momentary peace, they knew it wasn’t going to last.

Not every mecha in their squadrons was capable of direct combat. In fact, Eva’s unit was down to 105 front-line combatants with 72 supporting. In addition, the other units had their own support squadrons and wings, and not every single one counted as a direct combatant.

Most were recon and r/r, while others were artillery and demolitions. There were also e-war units. Though these units could be up front, they would be obliterated quickly.

In total, they had 1,097 mecha designed for the front line, with 343 acting as support, and 524 in reserve.

On the other hand, the enemy numbers were purely front-line ready mecha. They were designed to break through tough defenses, which they barely qualified as.

While the numbers looked good on their end, what the enemy had could tear through half of them like they were nothing. So they had the reserve units come up and help reinforce their units.

.....

This effectively left the training yard completely unguarded. Well, almost. The sergeants from each of the squadrons decided to act.

They too had seen battle in one form or another, and had been hardened by it. When they saw their cadets take on the responsibility of defending the base, they weren’t able to stick around and do nothing.

So each of the 84 sergeants hopped into their own mecha and guarded their HQ. They looked powerful and imposing as they stood with resolute determination, their mecha brimming with weapons and armor.

Sergeants Akim and Elyn stood atop HQ, with a huge chaingun in each of their arms.

Even though the base was relatively unguarded, no-one was necessarily worried, as they had Sunflower feeding them intel, who knew where every single drone was. They had no reason to suspect an attack on their rear.

Sunflower came on Eva’s comms display, a worried look plastered on her face.

“They’re all rearming and repairing just like us,” she said. “It’s clear they’re about to attack.”

“Do you have an estimate on their numbers?” Eva asked.

“Exactly 897 strong.”

“Any sight of the missing thousand?”

Sunflower shook her head in response. There was no sign of them, not that she could detect anyway.

Eva had taken this for good news. It didn’t exactly matter where they were now, only that they weren’t on this battlefield. Even then, those nine hundred were going to be tough for them to fight.

Sunflower suddenly gasped, and her eyes went wide.

“They’re on the move!” she exclaimed. “And they’re coming in hot and heavy!”