Ravens of Eternity

39 Synthetic Terror, Pt Mia cried out in anguish when her brother was killed, but now she was all alone with no-one to comfort or console her. Her sobs echoed flatly within the confines of her core.

She had already prepared herself for this moment, but it still struck her hard. Experiencing loss was nothing new to her. It was something she became familiar with the moment her Father came into her life.

But Darius was different. She grew up next to him, and together they had played and laughed and bonded for pretty much all of their lives.

They were together, even when Father was teaching them or preaching his manifesto.

Their bond was strong, and his sudden absence left a gaping wound deep within her.

As the chaos of battle ensued all around, that wound began to fill with her hatred. She had always been angry at the Federation, angry at their hypocrisy and their wanton need to slaughter her family.

But that anger was nothing compared to the fury she felt towards her brother’s killers.

Mia didn’t let it take her over, however. Instead she sharpened it, and honed it. She stitched up that hole and allowed what was inside to guide her.

Now that she was alone, there wasn’t any need for her to hold back in the slightest.

.....

“Your death will be avenged, brother!” she said. “Everyone’s deaths will be avenged. I’ll kill all these cadets and their fucking cowardly commander!”

The defenses had been completely annihilated all along the side where the drones attacked. Wreckages of the sergeants’ mecha, various turrets, and simple fortifications littered the area.

It was the very picture of brutal violence: the fortifications were warped beyond recognition while mecha were torn open and bloody.

Mia shifted her drones so they moved closer to the wall and faced outwards, as though she was defending it. She left a small group with Nightraven to keep the squad at a distance, which allowed the other drones to shift into a defensive formation.

Then she opened her comms and relayed a message to everyone on the field. Her face was set in an ugly sneer as she spoke. Her every word seethed with anger and disdain.

“The Prophets of Gaea will see every single one of you die today.”

Her face was suddenly replaced by the number “3”, which confused everyone for a moment.

Then she sent a drone straight towards the wall a few dozen meters behind them. It sped over as though it was going to ram it, and at the same time it traveled, the “3” turned into a “2”.

Every cadet suddenly became incredibly alarmed – it was a countdown!

The number hit “1” just as the drone reached the wall.

Inside, its power plant was shaking madly in its housing. The normally blue lights surrounding it were a harsh red while its klaxons rang.

The whole thing overloaded and immediately burst violently. The mecha detonated in a flash of superheated orange plasma.

Shrapnel flew in every direction as the ground rocked from the shockwave.

Commander Riddell and his officers stumbled in their war room as the building shook violently. The displays and lights flickered as the building’s power fluctuated.

Nothing was left of the mecha, save for a huge blast mark on the wall, which had caved in slightly from the blast. There was even a small tear right in the center.

Eva quickly scanned the wall – it was damaged to the point where a few more blasts like that would open it up. She estimated that it would take at least two or even three more to get through.

“Tyrant!” she yelled. “We need that interrupt asap! The girl’s gone nuts, and she’s detonating mecha!”

“We’re working on it!” he replied.

“ETA?” she asked.

Tyrant quickly asked the e-war squad leader on their status.

The e-war cadets were in their mecha, furiously tapping at their displays. Some of them were building their invasive code while others fought against the siblings’ NetDef.

Since they were trained for simple intrusions and weren’t quite as skilled as full-on engineers, they lagged behind in terms of their offense. But they still had deft hands, and made significant progress. Besides, without them the rest of them wouldn’t have had a chance at all.

The e-war squad leader looked at his comms display and raised three fingers in the air for a moment. Then he went back to work.

“Thirty seconds,” Tyrant replied.

Eva sighed as she thought of Miko. She had a feeling that she would have had no problems with this hack by herself.

“Make it fifteen,” she replied. “The enemy could start evaporating cadets at any time.”

As this was happening, the other sergeants came from around the building with their fortifications in tow. They lined themselves up at the enemy’s flanks and fired into their masses.

Of course, the drones fired back and wrecked the fortifications in response. However, they had taken a great deal of casualties and their effectiveness had dropped significantly.

They found themselves fighting on three sides, the sergeants behind fortifications at their flanks and Nightraven behind their shield wall at their front. With so many targets all around, they were unable to concentrate their fire like before.

On the other hand, the cadets and sergeants had a grand old time. They slung bullets into the drone swarm with little regard, as they knew they were hitting something no matter what. As the saying goes, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Many fell to their onslaught.

Drone wreckages were strewn all over the battlefield. Smoke rose from their mangled bodies as coolant pooled around them.

Eva did a quick scan and saw that they had reduced the drones’ numbers by half. Although, they had taken a handful of casualties of their own...

“Nightraven!” she ordered. “We need to take down the last synth, no matter what!”

She highlighted the mecha that Mia was in, and prioritized it as the number one target.

“Yes, squad leader!”

“We concentrate fire in thr-”

However, before she could start counting down, a half dozen mecha charged forward on each side. A number “3” appeared on everyone’s comms display, which caused everyone to go into high alert.

“Fuck! Scatter!” yelled Chengli.

“Wait!” countered Eva.

The drones sped their way towards them as the counter ticked down to “2.”

“Now!” she yelled.

Nightraven scattered away very quickly with full throttle, and even the sergeants did the same. This allowed them to space out further and minimize any casualties, but the reason why they delayed was to keep the drones from splitting up too soon.

When the countdown struck “1”, the drones exploded in grand fashion, the shards of their broken mecha flew everywhere.

Squadron Nightraven was able to retreat quickly and only took shrapnel damage to their shields and armor. Their nanorepairs would take care of those soon enough.

Unfortunately the sergeants weren’t so lucky.

Most of the sergeants had gotten away in time, but some stuck around at their fortification line to fire at the drones. They thought that if they could disable them quickly enough, it would halt their destruction.

While they were able to knock out one or two, they didn’t have the speed to destroy all of them.

As a result, the drones hit their fortifications on the last count, and exploded at point-blank range.

The fortifications basically melted away from the force of the concentrated blasts. Those who remained behind them evaporated as well. Their mecha were blown open, and everything inside their cores were scorched into charcoal.

Now, they had no cover at all and were completely out in the open.

Eva quickly scanned the wall and noted that it too had taken another blast! It had caved in further, the small tear was now a jagged scar ten meters long. She estimated that it could only take one more hit before it collapsed.

But she couldn’t think about dealing with that now. She had far greater problems in front of her – the rest of the drones had charged out of their formations and sped straight for everyone on the field!

“Now, you filthy insects,” yelled Mia across the comms, “you’re gonna know what it feels like to get bombed to death by the Federation! You’ll know firsthand how my brothers and sisters felt as they burned to ashes!”

A red “3” popped up on all their comms displays, which caused a wave of fear to pass through all of them.

“And you, squad leader!” Mia continued. “You’re mine! You’ll pay for killing my brother!”

Eva immediately shot a few bursts at Mia, but she had narrowly evaded them all. Mia was as skilled at piloting as her brother! Perhaps even better.

The e-war wing was furiously chopping away at their code, and the breachers had finally stripped away the siblings’ NetDef.

They quickly pushed their interrupt straight into the drones’ comms and hoped they made it just in time.

Eva cursed under her breath as the counter ticked down to “2”, not exactly sure of what to do. So she simply squared her rifle one more time and prepared to fire.

But before she could squeeze the trigger, Sunflower’s voice came across her comms as she tackled the insane Mia away.

“Squad leader Freya! Ru-”

She never finished her sentence, however. The counter struck “1” and Mia’s drone detonated in a wild explosion. She had overcharged all of her systems and modules, which caused her power plant to detonate with even greater ferocity.

A ball of red-hot plasma burst from out of her core. The explosion completely obliterated Mia’s mech and turned it into dust in an instant.

Sunflower’s mecha was torn to shreds and the main body was thrown several meters away.

The blackened husk smoked as Eva dashed up to it, but there was nothing she could do. The core was blasted wide open, and everything inside was blackened from soot.

Sunflower’s corpse smoldered, her once beautiful skin turned to charcoal. It was cracked in various places, and bright red flesh combined with yellow pus could be seen underneath.

Her face was literally turned to ash, and her eyes had become charred sockets. Her once glorious, lively smile was reduced to a grim, blackened skull.

No lifesigns, thankfully. Eva hoped that the end was quick for her, that it happened too fast for her to feel anything.

Around all of them were the once-hostile enemy drones. They had come to a rapid halt and stood as silent as statues. Their brains had been scrambled, and all their orders were wiped clean at the very last moment.

And with both of the sibling terrorists dead, and no-one to give them new orders, they were all but completely useless.

The cadets had won the fight, but at too great a price.

.....

Almost half of them had been brutally massacred by the drones’ devastating weapons, and those who didn’t die immediately had been horribly mangled. Very few who were wounded made it out of surgery alive.

Even the sergeants had taken severe casualties. A little over a quarter of them had been slain in the attack.

Eva stood rooted at the spot in front of Sunflower’s corpse. Her heart sank to the very bottom, and she felt a great weight pressing down on it.

It was something that she could hardly bear. She felt a deep, existential pain down to her very core. This too was some she had never felt before, not with this intensity. It was too deep, and too powerful.

It was as though a black hole had formed a pit in her chest, and swallowed everything that she was right into it. She barely felt it beat.

She fell down on one knee, her heart too broken to remain standing.

She was soon joined by sergeants Akim and Elyn. They too looked at Sunflower’s remains and fell on their knees.

Then Chengli came and knelt, followed by the rest of Nightraven. Even Grizz stepped forward and paid his respects.

Soon, all of the other cadets bent the knee, and silently honored all of those who had died.

More than that – it was their apology for not being fast enough, not being strong enough to protect them.

And over the open comms, the only one who made a sound was Eva as she softly wept for her dead friend.

Tears streamed down her face and fell down into little pools by her controls.

Had I been a better shot, she condemned herself, or a faster pilot, or a more decisive leader... Had I actually been superior, I would have been able to protect you better. You... you’d still be breathing.