I wake up to the jarring sound of my alarm screaming from my bedside table. I reach to turn it off and notice what time it displays: 0500, a wake-up time every Federation soldier is all too familiar with. As I crawl out of bed to begin my morning routine I desperately try to remember why I decided to serve in the greatest military force in the history of Humanity. I was born on Mars in the great city of NEW New York. I, like so many other humans never met my parents as I am a product of an extensive breeding program intended to weed out any genetic defects within our race. I never knew hunger as lab grown meat and automated farming have been a staples of food technology for Humanity for 300 years. Like all children in the Federation I was given a standard education until I turned 14. After a child reaches the age of 14 in the Federation you must chose a career path to specialize in. There had been many guests at our school through the years. Farmers, engineers, scientists, politicians, administrators, and so on. Every career field of any importance sent representatives throughout the Federation to recruit the youth into their fields of work. A few seemed like promising choices to me, but nothing drew me in quite like the military.
The representative for the Federation military was a grizzled old man who had fought in the Stelken war over 20 years ago, landing on planets and moons to root out resistance in vast underground bunkers. His service had cost him his legs and his right arm but the Federation saw his service as valuable enough to issue him robotic limbs so that he wouldn't be confined to a wheelchair. His service was inspiring to me, having fought in the depths of Stelken bunkers, not knowing whether each engagement might be his last. After his injury the Federation had assigned him to training new recruits as a Master Sergeant on Mars. Every year he would volunteer to come to my academy and speak to us so that we would never forget what was sacrificed by hundreds of thousands of fellow humans so that the Stelken might survive themselves.
After the man had finished his presentation, any of us who were interested in the career path were given the chance to go outside of the classroom and speak with the man. As the instructor dismissed us I rushed after the man, expecting to encounter fierce competition for his attention from my peers. When I exited the classroom the man was facing the classroom door, sitting on a small stool with his back leaning against the adjacent wall of the hallway. He looked up when I walked towards him and grimaced. Confused, I turned around a realized that not a single one of my classmates had followed me. Suddenly very nervous I hesitated, slowing my pace enough that the man noticed and spoke. He said "The military isn't for everyone you know" as he gestured at his robotic limbs. "Sometimes serving something greater than yourself can take a price from you, a price that can't be negotiated". I slowly nodded and then spoke up. "I still want to join, there hasn't been a war in 20 years, serving the Federation as a peacekeeping soldier seems like an honorable profession with little risk after so many years". The man laughed and said "Just because the Federation won the war doesn't mean there's no one who wants us dead. There are still pockets of Stelken resistance buried deep within hidden bunkers, miles below the surface of their planets and moons. I pity any poor bastard the Federation sends to flush them out". I smiled at the man and said "I wouldn't be scared to fight for the Federation. Any man who dies in the line of service is privileged to have sacrificed his life for the purity of Humanity". The man spat and said "Ask a man holding his guts in his arms if he cares about the purity of Humanity and see what they say. There's no glory in a man's last moments, only pain and suffering."
The man stands of from his stool and towers over me, he reaches into a pocket of his pants and hands me a piece of paper with an address on it and says "Go home and think about it. If you're still willing to die for the purity of Humanity when you wake up tomorrow, show up at 0500 and join the grunts". As the man walks away from me I become even more resolved to join the military. After all, there are soldiers out there killing and dying for me, then I have a responsibility to match their sacrifice.
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As I finish buttoning my service jacket I look back on the past eight long years of brave and selfless service to the Federation. After completing basic training I was selected by the Board of Federation Officers to attend a secondary training school dedicated to teaching and nurturing future leaders of the military. At the time I had believed this to be a great honor as in theory I would be leading a brave group of men loyal to the Federation on missions to secure much needed resources and eliminate dangerous rebels. But as I found out after deployment, the Federation spends an enormous amount of money training its' officers and considers them much too valuable to be "wasted" on the front lines.
So here I am, walking to my office where I sign paperwork that sends men to die, while I sit in a bunker two miles below the surface of Urtol, far away from any conflict whatsoever. To say I loathe my field of work would be an understatement, but the Federation offers no takebacksies, and there are always more men awaiting the slaughter.
As I finally sit overpriced, lab grown leather chair, my assistant, Staff Sergeant Mindal enters my office and drops as six inch stack of papers on my desk and says "here are todays mission sign-offs for you Lieutenant". Mindal is a native of Urtol, with Stelken blood flowing through his veins. But with years of Federation genetic selection he looks almost completely human, except for his abnormally pale skin that one earns from living their entire life underground as most Stelken do. I thank him and he walks off to complete his next task for the day and I glance at the stack of papers in front of me, guessing how many men would die by my hand today. I shake the thought out of my head as 8 years of this job have taught me that whatever number I guessed, the final tally was always more.
I sigh and pick up my Federation issued authorization stamp and start to read through the first sheet of paper. The mission is a routine patrol of a mine on the opposite side of Urtol, requesting 150 men and an 5 mechs to support them. Ever since the Stelken had been absorbed into the Federation the subterranean wildlife had grown increasingly aggressive to our mining efforts, most likely because the Stelken had been keeping their numbers controlled for thousands of years. But after the Federation condensed the majority of the Stelken into massive artificial habitats, they wildlife had made a massive resurgence with no one to regulate them.
With the Stelken now relocated, the responsibility to regulate the wildlife and protect our mining interests falls to the military, with thousands of men being torn apart by vicious creatures every day across the planet. As I sigh and stamp my authorization on the paper I move on to the next form, only to find a similar request for a different mine. I continue to read and stamp, sometimes making small changes like removing or adding to the number of troops requested. I continue down the stack until 1200, when my allotted lunch break starts. I slowly get up from my chair and leisurely stroll down the bunker hallways for a few minutes until I reach the cafeteria. As I enter, the whole room goes silent and everyone gets up to stand at attention I wave my hand and say "as you were", many of these men were eating their last meals so I never made them stand for the man that signed their death warrents.
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I make my way to the long line of soldiers waiting for their food and Mindal walks up to wait with me in line. "Another glorious day of service to the Federation sir?" he says without hiding his sarcasm. I merely smile and say "every day is a day worth serving Mindal" with sarcasm to match. We both wait in line together, slowing inching forward as each soldier receives their rations. While waiting we idly chat about the day and tasks unfulfilled until we finally make it to the front of the line and receive our rations. I chose mac'n cheese and Mindal chose grilled Eskar, a native creature of Urtol that tastes very similar to steak, but chewier. We both take our food and sit down at a table towards the back of the cafeteria and start to dig in.
As we eat and chat about things of no consequence I hear a quiet scratching sound against the concrete wall of the bunker next us but think nothing of it. The bunkers were built deep underground and often intersected the vast networks of natural caves that ran underneath the surface of Urtol and are often populated by natural wildlife such as Kryssik: small spiderlike creatures that ingest minerals for sustenance. They have a hard exoskeleton, reinforced by the minerals they consume. They frequently use their exoskeleton to scratch away at cave walls to unearth mineral deposits to feast on.
As we continue to eat the scratching persists and I ignore it but Mindal becomes agitated. "Damn Kryssiks" he says. "We're going to have to fill out a new material requisition to repair the wall if they keep this up". I laugh and say "It's not their fault the federation built this bunker with a bunch of tasty plasteel lining the walls". Mindal grumbles but goes back to eating his food and the scratching persists. When we're finally done eating we drop our trays in the return bin and start to walk out of the cafeteria to return to our duties but a loud THUMP stops us in our tracks.
Everyone in the room slowly turns to look at the source of the noise: the same wall the scratching sound was coming from. The whole room goes quiet, with not even a whisper among us. We wait for a while without hearing anything but just as everyone is starting to move again we hear another THUMP, this time much louder. Again a huge THUMP reverberates around the entire cafeteria as the wall resists whatever is trying to work it's way into the bunk.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, CRACK. A large crack starts to appear on the inner wall of the bunker. Everyone stands stunned. The Federation bunker was build to shrug off a nuclear bombardment with 8 feet of plasteel reinforced concrete but whatever creature is on the outside seems to be having little trouble working its way in.
I suddenly find my voice and shout out a command to the 300 soldiers in the cafeteria with me. "Everyone get to the armory NOW!". I turn towards Mindal and say "Go to the command center, lockdown the bunker, and send a message to orbital command. Tell them the Urtol Federation command bunker is under attack." Mindal nods and sprints down a hallways that leads to the bunker's command room while I run in the direction of the armory with the rest of the men in the cafeteria. As we make it to the armory the men that arrived first are all waiting by the door. The armorer is nowhere to be seen and the door remains locked, with only a few select officers having access. Lucky, I am one of those officers. I scan my wrist ID and the door slides open revealing one of the most beautiful sights the Federation can offer. The armory is a massive underground warehouse a with over a mile to each wall. Rows upon rows of armor, guns, grenades, ammo, and mech suits populate the armory making many of the soldiers following me drool.
I shout out "LISTEN UP!" everyone in the room stops and turns towards me. "Congratulations men, it's your lucky day. I give my authorization for the use of anything in this armory you desire. Grab what you can, I doubt anything than can bust through 8 feet of solid plasteel reinforced concrete will go down without a fight!" After I finish talking every man in the room has a stupid smile on their faces, it's not every day that the head of authorization lets you break out the big guns!
All of the men run towards their weapon of choice, some picking up standard issue kinetic rifles and others grabbing fusion rifles, railguns, or even recoilless rifles. As soon as they grab their weapon and ammo, every man runs to the armor racks that hold our battalion's standard armor. The TEMPLAR armor is the newest in a long line of exoskeleton armor that stands close to seven feet tall. With black, inch thick plasteel plates with red ornamental inlay, powered by a miniature fusion reactor and assisted by an advanced combat AI, each man becomes a killing machine able to do the work of 100 unarmored men on the battlefield. As the men don their armor and begin the activation process, their visors glow with a menacing red glare. As I move to grab a kinetic rifle and find my own suit of armor, the first men start to walk towards the armory door with a loud CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK as they walk.
I finally reach a suit of armor and the chest plate opens towards me to allow me to climb inside. As I enter I can feel the synthetic ballistic weave shrink around my limbs until it feels like a second skin. The chest plate closes, leaving me in absolute darkness for half a second until the AI boots up. As I hear the fusion reactor start to spin up the entire helmet becomes transparent, almost as if it were never there and a soothing female voice greets me. "ID confirmed. Welcome Lieutenant". Suddenly the hulking suit of metal becomes completely weightless around me and I walk towards the gathered men as if I were wearing nothing at all.
I head to the front of the group and walk out the door first, holding my rifle in front of me as I head back towards the cafeteria to confront whatever monster await us with my own army of monsters.
As we run back towards the cafeteria, the only audible sound is the thundering footsteps of the 300 suits of armor to my back and the sirens signaling the lockdown of the bunker. As we approach the cafeteria I start to hear new sounds, beginning with a guttural screeching sound that I assumed must be the monster. I begin to hear more sounds, a disturbing scraping sound like nails on a chalkboard as well as a disturbing amount of screaming and wailing. When we finally arrive at the cafeteria my stomach drops at the scene in front of us.
There was nothing in the cafeteria. Anything metal or organic, including all of the tables were missing except for the culprit. An enormous, hulking, Kryssik. It must have been close to 15 feet tall with an exoskeleton completely covered in thick plasteel armor. There was certainly evidence of people having previously been in the room as the entire room was painted in blood and viscera. I assumed that when Mindal had triggered the lockdown, he must have alerted the active security forces to respond to the cafeteria as well and my hunch was confirmed when the Kryssik turned towards us, eyeing our plasteel armor with a hungry look, still chewing on the legs of a man wearing a security uniform.