36
The dropship ramp opened downward, and Kyle and Alonso led the two dozen Praetorian Knights out into the blazing sun. The city was a warzone, the streets littered with rubble and the air thick with the acrid smell of burning metal. The quartz had turned it into a twisted, nightmarish version of itself. Although it was a simulation, it’s hard not to think it’s a real-time feed. Pressing down my nerves, I walked down the ramp, relishing how the chamber mixed visuals, smells, and even touch so meticulously realistic that I thought we were down in San Francisco itself.
The legionnaires had already cleared the first two blocks of the quartz before my simulated drop, securing south of San Francisco General Hospital, which overlooked Highway 101 and Potrero Hill—two clicks away from Captain Iraket’s downed ship we designated as Bane-1 (Second Cohort was tasked with taking care of the second downed quartz vessel, nicknamed Bane-2). The hospital was a modern structure—a series of glass towers connected by walkways stretched for several hundred meters across the hillside, half shattered and in ruins. They had secured both sides of the main entrance, but at least three more entry points were on each side. Even though this was just a typical training exercise, I ordered them to be all locked down tight.
“You heard the man,” said Kyle, who stood beside me as we watched our men move through the building. “Get those doors open,” he ordered First Centurion Tanner, a man barely in his early thirties, a former British Special Operator for the Special Air Service (SAS). Now he commanded a Centuria, a hundred legionnaires strong, which made up a fraction of a legion’s cohort.
A pair of legionnaires ran up to one of the doors and tried to get it open. After three attempts failed, Tanner called over another soldier, an older man named Gerrard, who looked like he could have been any age between forty and fifty, the nanites keeping his body in prime shape for combat. He moved quickly to the door and gave it a firm kick. It flew open with a crack that echoed throughout the chamber.
“All right,” said Kyle, turning back toward us. “Let’s go.”
We followed him inside, where we found ourselves in a long hallway lined with hospital beds on either side. A few people lay dead or dying on the floor, their bodies riddled with slashes and stab wounds from the quartz’s heat blades, poorly bandaged and treated from the city’s dwindling supplies and medicine. I was surprised to find that some sections of the walls were covered with graffiti, some of them scrawled messages of defiance against the quartz (Which Prime had noticed from the various social media posts from the survivors within the city).
We received intel that the real San Francisco General Hospital housed survivors secretly from under the quartz’s noses, held on by a posse of the US National Guard and several SFPD police. For the sake of this exercise, Prime introduced a variable that the National Guard and SFPD were copiously outgunned and outnumbered, and plenty of wounded civilians so that our medics could apply the life-saving benefits of forerunner medicine. Once the building was secured and the survivors gathered, we got to work on the civilians, aiding them.
These civilians were not real. Just mere hunks of metal draped in silicone in the real world that we could touch, floating in mid-air, all controlled by Prime. Every environmental hazard was just the nanites forming into various silver-colored odd shapes we could interact with, lifting and dropping platforms for elevation to simulate movement. The suit aided with the sense of touch.
By now, Sarah and Dr. Urho should be directing the dignitaries to watch this scene unfold from the holographic screen on the observation deck.
As I passed one room, I saw a woman lying on her bed, eyes closed. Her hair was cut short and dyed red; she wore a black leather jacket that reminded me of what Amelia used to wear. She had a bandage wrapped around her arm where someone had tried to slit her throat, but it didn’t look too deep. I stopped at her bedside and leaned down to check her pulse.
Nothing.
I took off my helmet and put my hand on hers. It felt cold and lifeless. I let out a sigh. This was only a simulation, yet I couldn’t help but feel guilty knowing I wasn’t here to save them. Their conditions were just as similar to the simulations. There were real people down there waiting for us to help, and we couldn’t—people suffering while I played the Emperor in the Sky.
I pulled my hand away and walked over to the next bed. The old man lying in it opened his eyes when he saw me, then shut them again after seeing who it was. His skin was wrinkled and pale, and his face was covered with stubble. I wondered what the dignitaries must be thinking watching us. Were they confused about why I was joining in the assault? Did they even know why we were doing this? Or did they think we were wasting time playing games instead of helping the real victims? Hopefully, it would spur Prime Minister Chabert to talk to President Howell about this.
I wanted to show them this was their chance to make a difference and fight against the real enemy. If telling them was not enough, showing them would. In our grand games, our people paid the price.
I walked out of the room. Outside, I caught up with Alonso, who talked to Tanner, Kyle, Smitty, and three more centurions. “How are things?” I asked as I approached them.
“We’ve taken care of most of the civilians,” said Tanner. “We haven’t seen any more resistance so far.”
“Good.”
Tanner pointed toward a hallway that led deeper into the hospital complex. “We’ve set up a forward command post in there. We have an officer from the National Guard coordinating with us, and he says that they can gather the remaining survivors hiding in this wing. We told them to hunker down in the cafeteria. Seems like the safer spot.”
“Good idea,” I said. “Make sure they stay there until we get everything cleared up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Second Cohort has already taken two of their main locations around Bane-2, your grace,” Smitty said.
Between the downed quartz, the second vessel posed the higher threat, more intact and able to produce the plasma dome with a heavier chance of resistance from a large group of quartz survivors. I am not giving them time to recharge and regroup (if they could) after the first assault by taking those shields down. I’ve concentrated a majority of the aerial bombardment around the crashed vessel. Now that their dome was down, the skies were mine. Captain Iraket remained vulnerable in his little castle, which I am itching to take.
“Release the drones so we can get a better vantage point above 101 and Potrero,” I said. “Be ready to move out in fifteen minutes against Bane-1.”
“Roger that, your grace,” replied Tanner. “We’ll keep you posted.”
I watched them go, then turned back toward the entrance hall with the rest of the Praetorian Knights following behind. I heard a loud screeching sound coming from outside as I reached the door. It sounded like metal scraping against stone or concrete.
I ran through the doors and found myself at the edge of the hillside overlooking Highway 101. A few dozen meters below me, a dropship landed with a thudding crash. The ramp dropped open, and several men in dark blue and silver armor jumped out before turning around to pull others out behind them. The quartz still had a few attack aircraft left in the air, and they managed to bring down a dropship.
Without thinking, I went over there and helped haul off anyone from the burning husk.
“Fucking piece of shit!” one of the soldiers shouted over the sounds of the blaze. She wore a helmet with a visor that made her look like she had no face--just a black void where her features should be.
“Are you all right?” I asked as I helped drag her out of the wreckage. She was bleeding heavily from her arm as electrical signals from the suit rendered her limb unusable.
“Yeah,” she said, coughing on smoke. The Imperial Marine insignia on her armor told me she was a Veteran, a non-commissioned officer who typically led a platoon of twenty-five legionnaires. “I’m fine. Thanks for getting us out.” She quickly realized who I was and bowed her head. “Um, my thanks, emperor.”
“Where are the rest?” I looked at the burning ship.
“They’re dead,” she said, looking away. “Half of the platoon is gone.”
I walked over to the ship and peered inside, seeing the remains of its occupants strewn across the deck: burnt skin, broken bones, crushed skulls, and blood splattered everywhere. A couple of men tried to escape but only got halfway out when they fell back into the flames.
The legionnaire who came running behind me held his vomit briefly before emptying his lunch to the side. Even Smitty and Alonso looked away and composed themselves. Though the dead legionnaires’ suits rendered them paralyzed for this exercise (and whisked away by drones to watch from the sidelines while their avatar corpses remained in the simulation), their mangled corpses were a nice, macabre touch. Even I flinched and looked away.
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I spotted Ben and Nick’s star-fighters flying past us, covering the other dropships—our reinforcements.
“Get these people to safety,” I said. “We’re moving out.”
“Yes, your grace,” replied the veteran. “Come on, everyone, let’s get out of here.”
The legionnaires carried the wounded woman away, leaving the remaining bodies behind. As they dragged her along the ground, I stepped back, then turned around and jogged back toward the hospital. Behind me, the dropship exploded into a ball of flame. The heat felt real enough that I thought it bore a hole through my cape.
----------------------------------------
It took an hour to take Potrero Hill and send the quartz fleeing back to Mission Bay, hunkering down near the downed vessel.
Then we moved on to Bane-1.
From the ground, the quartz vessel looked like a massive makeshift fortress built close to the waters near Oracle Park, flattening half of the baseball stadium. We used our artillery to soften the defenses, then sent in the infantry.
The Imperial Marines fought through the outer ring of defense turrets and fortifications, clearing each building room by room until we reached San Francisco Station. From there, the fight became much harder; the enemy had set up barricades and fortified positions within the inner courtyard and walls surrounding the structure, plasma heat blades glowing in the waning afternoon light. I asked Prime to make this exercise challenging so that Chabert or Carrasco wouldn’t accuse us of setting the difficulty to a cakewalk. Prime might have overdone it.
I lost eighteen percent of the first cohort assaulting Bane-1. Another fifteen percent, and I would have written this off as a loss and called for a retreat. We were cutting it too close.
“Left flank push!” I said over the comms when Prime had noticed the quartz began to weaken there.
First Centurion Tanner, who still led what’s left of his dwindling centuria nearby, quickly ordered his men to charge, aided by turrets and a dozen battle drones. At the same time, Ben and his squadron littered the area with fire, widening a gap for the centurion and his legionnaires to take the position.
The air was thick with the smell of smoke and copper as our rifles crackled and spat. Blaster bolts sizzled through the air, tearing into the quartz defenses and sending showers of sparks flying. Explosions rocked the ground beneath my feet, and I felt the concussive force of each detonation reverberate through my body. One quartz broke through our defenses and made its way to me; the heat blade raised high to cut me in half.
“Tony!” Alonso screamed.
I triggered [Cloud Barrier].
Swarms of nanites dulled the hit as I dodged away, boosting my boots to lift me three feet off the ground. Alonso and Kyle quickly brought down the quartz to his knees, their heat blades, making sure to strike the weak spots we determined from the dead quartz in our labs, which were right behind their knees, under the armpit, and a small gap between their ribcage and abdomen.
I gathered the swarming nanites back to me, preparing for the new attack I had been practicing for weeks in my private simulation chamber in the palace. Hopefully, the dignitaries didn’t see my nose bleed again. That would be embarrassing.
I summoned [Cutting Finish].
The swarm transformed into a two-foot-long nanite blade a quarter of an inch thick, floating in mid-air. With a push, I sent it hurtling at two hundred miles per hour, decapitating the quartz cleanly through the neck. Its head rolled to the ground and stopped before Alonso’s boots. As soon as the cut happened, the swarm disintegrated into a cloud, returning to me.
I sneakily checked my nose—no nosebleeds—and sighed in relief.
I ordered the knights to charge.
The Praetorian Knights were fearless, charging forward with their heat swords raised high. The blades glowed with dark orange light and sliced through the quartz like butter. The aliens hissed and screeched as they fell before us, their strange, carapaced bodies writhing in agony. Each shot punched through its natural armor. Each slashes burnt and scarred through its rocky shell.
But the quartz was not easily defeated.
For this exercise, I included our extrapolation that the quartz carried ranged weaponry, and they fought back with fierce determination, their weapons firing deadly purple beams of light that cut through the air like hot knives. We ducked and weaved, dodging the attacks as we pushed forward, our weapons blazing. Our armor and shields protected us, but more than one legionnaire still fell to a couple of well-placed shots and slashes.
As we continued to push forward, several more dropships landed outside the main perimeter, disgorging hundreds of armored legionnaires into the fray from the third cohort, now able to join the simulation as our reinforcements. They stormed through the doors, into San Francisco Station, and into the fortress, where they engaged the enemy left and right.
I ran ahead, leading my men and a strong force of two centuries into the heart of Bane-1, hoping to find Iraket himself.
We ended up in a long hallway filled with dozens of alien corpses and blood splattered across the ground and debris; the floor was slippery with gore. Several dozen centurions, veterans, and legionnaires lay dead around me, their bodies twisted and broken. I kept pushing deeper into the structure until I came upon a large chamber with two staircases leading up to the next level. Ten legionnaires and their centurion fought against a squad of six large quartz a few hundred meters away.
Covered in soot and blood, they wielded their short swords like madmen as my legionnaires engaged in close-quarters combat. One legionnaire got knocked down with a quartz beam by the head. The sim quickly interpreted that as an immediate decapitation just above his clavicle, shearing off a section of his shoulders as well. The poor man lay writhing on the ground as his suit sent a two-second shock on his body and paralyzed him.
We reached the vessel’s bridge.
I gripped my rifle tightly, the cool metal comforting in my hands as I stormed into the room with the knights. The entire space was made of opaque glass and jagged crystal, with only a few windows along the sides, letting in some sunlight. A massive quartz stood in the center of the room, surrounded by several smaller ones, heat blades drawn out, ready to make their last stand.
Captain Iraket seethed and commanded his forces to charge at us.
I didn’t know what Iraket looked like, but I reckoned he must be an intimidating figure (all the quartz were).
I lowered my rifle. “End simulation!” I shouted.
Iraket and his quartz froze mid-charge. His blade mere inches away from my own throat.
Although it was tempting to continue the fight here, It seemed ingenious how we were playing pretend to fight the quartz captain, the only confirmed commanding officer of the quartz. I didn’t know how he would perform in battle. I’ve never even seen him. This was a mere fantasy, and I will not indulge my ego in defeating him in a fucking sim chamber. When I faced him for real, then I’d know. The exercise aimed to take the quartz bridge, and we succeeded.
In a few seconds, the chamber returned to its regular form. I watched Iraket’s face quickly disintegrate and vanish, a hollow pang in my gut swelling briefly. Looking around, I saw the naval officers standing on the elevated platforms twenty-three stories high (where the frigates and corvettes were supposed to be). ‘Dead’ legionnaires standing in the big waiting area from the sidelines, watching the battle unfold via holographic screens, drinking their refreshments. For those who survived, their suits returned to their typical colors; the dirt, grime, blood, and soot were gone. The platform I stood on tilted eight degrees west, mimicking the real quartz ship’s position on the ground.
“Well done, Legion Invictus,” Prime said over the chamber’s speakers. “You have successfully taken Bane-1 and Bane-2. You have liberated the city of San Francisco.”
The whole room let out a cheer.
Through my eyes, Prime quickly projected the numbers. Out of four participating cohorts from Legion Invictus—two thousand legionnaires strong—, this scenario netted us with 432 legionnaires dead, 1,389 civilians dead or injured as collateral damage from the aerial bombardment, and ninety-three percent of the quartz forces killed or defeated with seven percent unaccounted for.
Not too bad. I expected worse, but I reckoned that now most of the legion was equipped with forerunner tech and nanites; their effectiveness had steadily increased with each exercise. Last week, we lost more than half of the second and fourth cohorts from an assault on Bane-2 alone, forcing a retreat. Now, barely a quarter were dead or critically injured.
I commanded the platform I stood on to be at an even level, and since the knights were already with me, I told Prime to lift us back to the observation deck. Dr. Urho had brought down the windows, so I stepped into the lounge area, covered in sweat. The knights followed behind.
Dr. Urho walked up to me and whispered. “I’ve explained to our guests that all variables were painstakingly accurate if it were to play out in the real world, your grace. They seem to understand it.”
Wonderful, I thought. “Thank you, doctor,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “Good job.”
Dr. Urho smiled. “It was a hell of a fight, emperor. For a second there, I feared we might have set the difficulty too high. I was tempted to scale it back a bit.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
I looked back at the knights. They didn’t lose a single knight on the exercise compared to the previous ones, where at least half a dozen or more ended up dead. They had acclimated well to the nanite dose I had given them, which was twelve percent more potent than what the regular legionnaires and centurions had. “It worked out fine,” I said. “Give yourself and the staff a break tonight. Celebrate. You’ve done good work.”
“Thank you, your grace. We will.”
I strode toward the foreign dignitaries. From what I gleaned from their conversations, they mainly talked about the simulation and how my newly invented weapons performed. Chabert was the first to congratulate me on the sim’s success. I realized they started to warm up to the technology’s capability. They might ask themselves, what if a sim chamber was built within their nation and used by their soldiers? Imagine the military industry booming overnight. A new arms race would bloom.
“I reckon you all must be hungry. I’ve arranged guest rooms and private apartments in the palace where you can rest for the afternoon. We will have a feast tonight with the rest of my family and my government. All of you would be my guests of honor. Ms. Sherwood will send your secretaries more details about certain customs you should follow and what will happen tonight.”
I paused.
“And don’t go wandering around unaccompanied by imperial guards. Segerstrom Station comes with a plethora of security measures. I’d regret it if you happened to trigger one of them. I don’t want to get in the habit of cleaning up the mess.”
They all visibly gulped and froze. After what they had just witnessed in the sim chamber, most of their entourage and security detail were awfully quiet. After all, they just saw a bunch of nanites come out of my body, and I started controlling them. President Seydoux and the Swiss councilors even watched me warily as I passed, leading them back to the Ministry of Defense, where we hopped onto the waiting elevator tram.
As we headed up to the palace, more than a few of them had requested a private chat with me, out of the earshot of others.
I leaned over to Sarah. “Have President Carrasco meet me in the garden two hours after he and his crew settle in. Make sure to indicate its privacy.”
“What should I tell him it’s about, your grace?” Sarah asked quietly.
I glanced over to Carrasco, who noticed me looking. He nodded, lifted his champagne glass slightly, and returned to his conversation with his press secretary.
“Oh, he knows what we’re going to discuss,” I said. “Have the files ready about the archipelago. We’re gunning for it.”
Sarah smiled. “Of course. I’ll get it done.”
Once Sarah walked away, I approached the French president and the Swiss councilors peering out the window, pointing at the sights they could see over Level 18. The latter were most interested in discussing potential investments I was happy to indulge in, especially about opening their banks, corporations, and billions of euros to the Tellurian Empire.