1028 A.D. the crowd outside Kravlta Parliament building was deafening. Three groups surrounded the parliament building, Hawks, Doves, and the Public Security Force.
It was an assembly of protesters and security forces. The Hawks against the Doves. We, the PSF against everyone.
The Hawks are people who believe that the Kravlta Governmental Reconstruction Republic should join the rest of the nations in a grab for land and resources.
The Doves are people who oppose the Hawks beliefs as they see it inhumane to force inferior civilizations off their lands.
If you don’t know what the protesters are really about then I’ll give you a brief summary.
A year ago, another civilization from another undiscovered continent invaded the Kingdom of Swanolio. A neighboring country of ours. The invaders were technologically inferior and were massacred when Swanolio troops retaliate.
Swanolio allowed a handful of the invaders fleet to escape. Swanolio Royal Navy followed them towards a new continent which we now call Nevyniu, roughly meaning underdeveloped.
Underdeveloped civilizations means untouched potential resources and possible riches. It wasn’t before long that the Kingdom of Swanolio invaded the continent, followed by their closest ally, the Osna Republic.
Other countries quickly followed. Landlocked nations sent massive air fleets, coastal nations sent countless of fleets.
All with one intention: Resources, land, and knowledge.
Because of the unfamiliar geography in Nevyniu, all of the invading nations mainly use drones to fight their battles.
Basically, drones are robots program to kill anything except plants and allies.
The people of Nevyniu were after all, inferior. Their weapons are somewhat outdated; repeater rifles, weaker version of artillery, cavalry, etc.
They even have outdated tactics like mages that stand in the back and invoke powerful spells, etc. Seriously, all mages in our continent, Gaia, are put through rigorous training in order to be effective both in the frontline and back.
Hopefully you get the main idea of the situation.
The crowd was growing restless. One of the Hawks hurled a rock at the opposing crowd causing a chain relation as now both side were throwing stuff at one another.
“Disperse immediately! We will fire tear gas in ten…”
The mob slowly pushed themselves away from PSF that were blockading the building.
“Okay, do not fire the tear gas yet. We don’t want the crowd turning into a stampede!”
“Hold fire!”
Just when we thought that the crowd was going to calm down, five Hawks threw Molotov cocktails at the Doves.
“Eat this you shit!”
“Gagh!”
The Molotov cocktails shattered on the pavement sending a wave of flame outwards from impact. Nearby people were caught alight and panic sets in as everybody was trying to escape from the sudden violence.
“Damn it! You! Set the water canon to low and spray the ignited areas!”
A sergeant shouted at the water canon operator who quickly pressed several buttons and sprayed the areas that were on fire.
“Dahmiel! Apprehend those throwers!”
That’s me. I ditched my baton and riot shield and ran into the fleeing crowd. I spotted one of the throwers, a guy with a yellow bandana and dull green shirt turned into an alley.
I pick up my pace and turn into the alley straight into a lead pipe.
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I duck and tackled the assailant knocking him over. I quickly rolled away and pushed myself to my feet.
All five rioters surrounded me. Three are wielding bats and pipes, one holding a knife, the green shirt guy held nothing.
“Nothing personal soldier, but if we’re to move forward we need to make some sacrifice.”
“…”
Nothing personal as well. I lunge towards the guy who tried to hit me earlier with the pipe.
He swings the pipe lower this time to ensure it actually hits. The others rushed in to wail on me with their weapons.
I kicked my foot in front of me and pushed myself back and did a back fist towards the middle man. My fist connected square into his right temple and he spun once and kneed to the floor in daze.
“Ugh…”
The man with the knife, which I believe is more of dagger slash and stab at the arms. The other guy with the bat swing his bat downward towards my head.
I dodge the knife guy and used my arms to block both of his arms from swinging the bat and did an upper cut on the bat wielder.
“Gah!”
The bat man stumbled back and dropped his bat. To be safe, I gripped his head and slammed him into my knee. The man’s head snapped back and his whole body fell to the side.
“Son of bitch!”
Two guys with the pipes charged towards me, one was holding the pipe to his side in batting position while the other guy had his overhead.
I focused the guy who was holding his pipe overhead and side sweep him.
“Wha-“
His head collided hard to the hard floor.
The other guy swing his pipe wildly, this left him full of opening. I closed the distance and head-butt him in the head, then grabbed his right arm. Pulling him towards me with my right arm, I grabbed the back of his head with my left arm and kneed him in the chest.
“Kogh!”
Releasing him, I did a palm hook strike and heard some cracking. The man collapse to the floor KO’d.
I focus my attention to the knife man, who has shrink away from the fighting towards the wall. He didn’t look like he wanted to fight.
The green shirt man was paled, but he pulled out two brass knuckles and took a fighting stance.
“Fuck… I know boxing, don’t think I’m easy prey.”
“…”
I sized him up. The green shirt man looked dejected.
“Fuck it, I surrender.”
“S-same!”
The two remaining rioters toss their weapons to the side, put their hands behind their head and kneel.
That makes my job easier… I reached into one of my vest pockets and cracked a cylinder. The cylinder crackled and began to make a whistling noise as it glows bright red.
Releasing it, the red whistling orb flew up like a flare reaching its maximum height before softly falling down. Within seconds I hear the stomps of many security forces rushing towards my location.
My superior, Staff Sergeant Jack Williams Abell patted my back as the other soldiers carried off my five victims, well… Three of them.
“Excessive force much?”
“Five against one? Armed vs unarmed? You tell me.”
“Those pipes and bats aren’t much against our protective gear. The knife can pierce our armor a bit…”
“You’re about to ramble.”
“I do not. Let’s go. Let the rest handle the rioting. Although things aren’t as bad as we thought it would be.”
“Yes sir.”
We got in a small armor vehicle that is often used for transporting officers. I pulled off my riot helmet and yawn,
“By the way Dahmiel… The brass is summoning you.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Apparently you’re selected to join the Expedition Force”
“…! Kravlta Expedition Force? The KSF?”
“Yup, congratulation.”
“Congratulation you say, reassigned to the sun I say.”
Kravlta Expedition Force is what many would call it, an odd division. Members from all branches and elite regiments would sometimes be called into service of the Expedition Force.
Because of that, one would expect lots of disorder and confusion over ranks as some military branches have their own ranks that differs from the rest. Not to mention I hate sightseeing foreign lands.
“Nonsense, all you basically do is sit on an airship or ship and stare at a screen from the view point of the drones.”
“I think you missed out on some points. In case things goes awry, we’ll get place out on the field.”
“Which is why they send the best of the best.”
“A foolish way of losing a valuable asset if you ask me.”
Sending a small platoon of elite soldiers onto unknown territory always looked foolish to me.
“Well they couldn’t let you elites gather dust in this prison realm. Besides, it’ll be like a vacation. You sitting and watching a screen like how people would watch sport on the TV.”
“Uh-huh… So when am I called up and where?”
“Oh yeah, it’s tomorrow at ten at the Reassignment Office. The fifth one.”
“How convenient. That I means get to rest for the night.”
“Yeah and the sun is setting. You’re off duty when we reach back to base.”
Yes! That means I can finally sleep early. I’m always missing some sleep because of recent events.
“Good, I’m going to sleep early. After I get a small meal from the mess hall.”
“Are you going to drop by the Officers’ Mess?”
“No why?”
“That Mikail kid gave Second Lt. Simon Herig a package to deliver to you, but neither one was able to find you because of the protesting today. I was told to pass the message to come find him in the Officers’ Mess.”
“Oh? Mikail is here?”
Mikail Baert is a military Specialist in the Marine Corps. He’s currently at the age the sixteen, which is under the conscription age and is a prodigy. He can micro military drones that rivals Artificial Intelligence operators. Because of his abilities, he was assigned as a Drone Operator for the Marine Corps.
Not only that, when it comes to manually controlling a drone he could devastate enemies with his controlling skill. By the way, most online gamers banned Mikail from playing with them, something about being a script kiddie.
Normally, he’ll be at the Central Command Center…
“SPC Mikail already left. Just find 2ndLt. Herig and they’ll get out of my hair. I heard he’s been playing poker with the one of the generals all day in the mess.”
“Mwah…”