Aleph and his command unit Alpha-1 maneuvered the trecharous wastes, encountering sporadic patrols of hostiles, every fight was brutal, and it was nearly their last, out of ammunition yet wanting to preserve their sidearms for a truly dangerous fight they kept up close-range fighting.
Until they came upon a large encampment, in the ruins of a greyish structure a broken city, the signs of fighting was heard, shell-casings…their own...
-
There was a horrid smell, rotted flesh it tormented the senses, Saiyah was uttering incomprehensible complaints as they waltzed forwards, broken helmets made it hard to keep out the smell.
Asaph was ahead sweeping left to right, finally a hand on the handcannon they were all equipped with the AUTEC|944 Deadliest sidearm in the Galaxy, firing Viper Shells with enough firepower to kill a moose.
Two fire-modes.
He had the first slide pulled back, the second was supernaturally charged, difficult to pull back even for a Vampire of his caliber, the weapon could be described as living, utilizing Vecta Reflux to charge all remaining shells in it.
This danger and power were recognized by the other shocktrooper that popped out,
“I didn’t even sense any of you.” Aleph immediately cuts in before they can start,
“Tcht, I had them zoned the moment I walked in. No better than me” Saiyah shot to Aleph, sharp and bitter
It was uncharacteristic and had him giving a head-turn before focusing back in.
“You didn’t say anything?” Asaph passively nodded and shot toward Saiyah.
“Why bother they were coming out.” Saiyah gave a nod.
Aleph gave a knife-hand behind him without looking like the trio was behind, ordering them to cut it.
“Status?” he motions with same hand forwards.
One of them eyes his hip and sling, and then gives a nod “Green, High-Sergeant-Victor. Your rifle is missing.” One of them is quick to speak sternly, robotic without a hint of life.
Aleph hides a face of unease at that in the robotic pattern of speech. But he has a bit of warmth hearing his new title, he could get used to that!
“Irrelevant, in these ruins how many of thereof of you in total?” Aleph was looking at twelve, but the shifting of rubble, a few rocks hitting down told him there were fifteen in total just surrounding them.
There were several hundred of them here surrounding them.
“Are you the logistics unit?”
“Logistics unit? What intel were you given Sir? No one was–Ugh!” A shocktrooper came back and hammered her elbow into his side enough to knock him back a few paces.
A woman with a visor unique stepped forward, her monoeye was yellow, she had a stranger figure, albeit it was womanly even in armor. Aleph bit his tongue seeing it saying nothing more.
He forced his head up and kept it on her–Visor
she held tight form and posture yet leaned on her hip staring down at him rather than toward him..
He could see the unique way her helmet was shaped, extra bulk bulky, communicator piece on its left flank,
It’s where the Sergeant’s patch was placed into like a chip, like the one he received in training. He could see it almost sticking out on her helmet...
“Sergeant, identify yourself.” Aleph shoots
There’s a pause as she just stares at him, holding a long-rifle, mono-eye visor, her VLIR flickering, not just hesitant but a bit rebellious most of them are.
They all know who Aleph is, recognize him with even armor on, and she looks as if she is judging him.
“Sergeant Juno.” She answers simply, causing Aleph to flinch and almost step back.
looking over the damages of his command-unit and Aleph almost tweaks his head as if he can almost hear her laugh looking over their damages “Alpha-1-Actual Victor huh?”
“It’s wise for those commanding to be able to identify key-leaders under his command.” Juno seems to add sharply
Saiyah flinches a bit as if sensing something and takes straight and tall posture facing Juno down.
Juno tilts her head off to the side at Saiyah before focusing on Asaph and rolling her attention back to Aleph.
,Aleph’s finger twitches for a moment, at the discomforting silence of this wordless exchange between them all before he gives a nod
He didn’t recognize her until name came Juno, back in training when she joined the pack that savagely kicked in his sternum and skull until his eyes popped.
How she utilized her terrifingly accurate precision and aim to cripple and beat him in live-fire exercises.
What do I have to care for now…I’m here, I’m the leader!
Aleph almost wants to enjoy this in a second to bite back at her but he doesn’t.
He clasped his hands together but remembered proverb told from mouth of his human-father.
Pride cometh before fall.
He didn’t dare curse his human father for teaching him something that has him fearfully holding back, yet is at least confused why he remembers his words now.
He didn’t need to worry he wasn’t Aleph amongst them now. He was Victor.
He switched on demand.
“Sergeant your unit, are these all yours?”
“A hundred of us here, I’ve had all one-thousands of my assigned unit moment I dropped, smoke signals.”
Aleph gave a nod and stiff chuckle “human culture isn’t as vain as we’d been taught.” He laughs recalling a time she’d mocked him for his father being executed ‘like most humans do anyway’
Juno seemed to tilt up, her voice gained some emotion, it was high, soft. “Huh…” She spoke as if giving a laugh recalling the same, but her laugh still was vindictive.
Both under their helmets even for vampires had stressed eyes, leading with no intel, no objective keeping everyone they can alive.
Aleph gave a nod.
Saiyah eyed the two conspicuously and deeply staring through the broken pieces of her helmet.
Asaph adding “Alep-!” He stops correcting himself in front of these others “Victor.” He names him by callsign. “We are in need of.” He purposefully doesn’t finish and rolls his wrist at Aleph from behind
“High-Sergeant Alpha-Victor, we are indeed the logistic unit you are looking for, I think you should get your squad resupplied.” Juno stood before them. Shouldering her long-rifle.
Asaph tilts his head toward her and immediately walks off speaking with another shocktrooper who leads him off.
Saiyah doesn’t move just yet and neither does Anna.
“I’ll speak with her, resupply and rearm until then. I need to speak with Sergeant-Juno.”
Saiyah frowned through exposed parts of her helmet upon dismissed but hadn’t hesitated as she walked away whilst doing. Aleph shook his head at that and turned to Juno.
He didn’t hear Anna’s footsteps and was a little bit thankful for that.
“Anna.” He said her name straightly. Without looking, she trailed behind him the moment Juno began to walk off and Aleph followed.
He watched Juno from behind and took in the fine details if her form.
but her figure had utility
They from a distance looked like hulking purple armored mountains with bulky form that is only realized the closer they are,
But well defined among them was Juno looked like as best as he could describe it ‘like an odd Olympian, she was an inch taller than him at seven-feet-eight-inches.
Her legs were long, she had a graceful form in any stance and as she moved and was perfect–she was like an enchanting predator, oddly beautiful in Aleph’s eyes.
A flower with thorns, many, many thorns.
“You landed with a marksman rifle?” he comments on her loadout.
“Krul singled me out.” Her right hand suddenly clenches into fist as she steps forwards, rocks crushed underneath her armored boots rather than trampled.
“Would handicap me whenever we did shoot. Yet I’m the best, you know that well anyway don’t you Aleph?” her voice is positive as if she recalls some nostalgia.
It has Aleph visibly worn his arms going limp slightly but hardly noticeable.
Except in Anna’s view, she sights this and can’t bite her tongue
“Yet you were still second to me.” Anna observantly glanced between, but her professionalism wasn’t hiding that partly exposed smile in her shredded helmet. A bit of pride.
Juno spoke up, “Yes I was wasn’t I?” Juno spoke as if wanting to say more but didn’t.
They kept moving forwards.
Between an alleyway of two residential buildings with many windows, a hole in one as a couch was hanging from wires and debris.
There was now four residential buildings surrounding them and what looked to be a makeshift encampment, deployable metallic foam formed barricades, and around them was crates and weapons stashed.
“These came in pods?” Aleph inquires.
“After ours and here.” Juno waves with hands and soft voice.
She sits onto a crate, tweaking the bipod of her rifle. Her posture is straight
She is slow and deliberate, she seems to be thinking something over yet he can feel her stare as if she is watching him able to focus on the rifle and him with ease.
and Aleph sits down onto a crate ahead of her.
Anna stands nearby, afar off watching the two. Juno spares her not a glance but sits up and stares down toward Aleph who is hunched downward looking at the dirt and mismatched concrete under his armored boots.
There are two other shock troopers here keeping tabs on the weapons, checking over and counting ammunition rapidly, they are working harder as Juno is noticed by them.
They are isolated here from most other shocktroopers, Aleph feels greatly alone now even with Anna and the two other shocktroopers he doesn’t immediately recognize, he feels like Juno’s eyes have become spotlights.
Initially welcoming she’s become like a predator sizing him up, and he wouldn’t be wrong.
She’s not just looking to him, but where that patch would’ve been slotted into his helmets communicator piece, the patch that didn’t just make him a Sergeant but High-Sergeant
There is the distant hum of combat suddenly starting, signaling there are other groups of shocktroopers around still fighting elsewhere that haven’t been found, enough to have an entire planet of mechra struggling.
Juno gives a huff, a laugh of disbelief as she looks Aleph over before crossing her arms, looking at his worn out armor, her armor in contrast appeared mostly clean as if she hadn’t seen any combat.
But her rifle was dirty, and she had faint scratches on it.
“There likely no injuries beyond superficial damages that aren’t already recovered from anyone else we might find, Aleph.” Juno uses his name rather than callsign, her voice is deliberate and slow with emphasis on his name.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
He can almost feel the smirk, as his head looks up to her before glancing back down as he thinks.
She has a bit of mirth “You’ll be wanting us to strike the city after we strike and regroup everyone.” Her tone stinging yet cold and calculated.
Her prediction has Aleph take a while to give response.
And she impatiently adds on nodding her head at him.
Anna doesn’t say much letting the two go on, but anxiously taps a finger on her arm as she crosses them and lets her rifle hang at her hip from her sling.
“Correct, and is there issue?” Aleph answers.
“None at all.” She almost lets out the condescending laugh– “Without a hint of strategy I can see the makings of a great plan but it seems terrible.”
“We wouldn’t die!”–Aleph huffs finding resolve against a truth he will work around. “We can strike subtly; hit fast we can sneak in.”
“And get into the shield how? It’s meant to protect from orbital bombardment”–“You have a skeleton key, Aleph?”– She clicks the bipod of her rifle staring down further at him
“I.Have.A.Way.In” Aleph sharply bites, forgetting he is leader and being challenged, his foot tapping against the concrete, the rhythmic motion not soothing him but giving him something else to do.
As he hides concern in her words being put on the table.
He considers it as his head tilts upwards.
The two other shocktroopers nearby counting equipment are now facing them whilst they work.
This ability I can use it or at the very least God have mercy.
He pleads and prays to the God of his father for a moment before turning his head back down.
“We’ll get in.”
“Then what? Wreak havoc in a city filled with who knows-how many machines.” She bites as if chastising a child for wishful thinking. “You even know which one-.”
“The one with their tower.”
“Tower?” She answers confused.
Aleph starts “The machines were peeling off from assaulting me when I landed, they were guarding a tower. It’s something they don’t want us to attack, it’s related to a quantum–.” Aleph doesn’t go further, not wanting to give impression he has any idea of their objective
“Well High-Sergeant, they give you our objectives then?” Juno interrogates looking up at him, glaring underneath her helmet strongly, he can see two glowing iris shine underneath her black visor partly as the yellow mono-eye VLIR fades.
“Just know we destroy it. That’s all.” Aleph announces decision for the first time to himself and her.
“Hostiles, what are we going to do?”
“Regroup everyone, pile our supplies together, strike the tower, break the shield. Any of the weapons that were hitting our ships and pods.”– He draws in air.
“Are groundside too, not just in their fleet, if reinforcement comes–.”
“IF?”
Anna points to Juno “What are you a child? Are you trying to listen to a C.O or argue with him?” Anna barks and exclaims, fuming
She’s angry, but angry at Aleph too for not planting his foot down further but hesitates.
The two other shocktroopers are witnessing this and Anna knows failing to use your authority will lead to less respect for it.
She knows what Juno is biting him for and would’ve and had nearly done the same had she not seen albeit how reliable he was, whilst still having room for some improvement.
Juno gives a short laugh disregarding Anna “IF?” she isn’t just sitting but standing, glaring daggers down at him.
Aleph stands up, he acts smoothly, he doesn’t snap with anger but his tone is dead now. He channels memory of every moment, the machine that collapsed in training, his connection and intrusion of minds before.
Juno flinches as her VLIR flashes, data speeding by in her eyes like a speeding automobile, yet she can read all of it.
“Ho-how the hell did you do that? It’s like you sent me data from a military-server.”
Aleph has realized the connection with his mind and VLIR for awhile, she just confirmed he could do something new.
Scrolling across is the script and data Aleph gleamed when he broke into the minds of the machines he was facing.
It has Juno clearing her tone “Victor…. You claimed there was no intel.”
Aleph shook his head utilizing something he hasn’t fully understood but has come to realize may be useful Especially now.
“None given to me by Vis-Stasi or command.”
Anna gives tilts her head up in confusion
Juno tilts her head thumbing over the bottom of her helmet, thinking it over.
“The enemy hasn’t hit us orbitally with a laser because they might not be able to track us so well under these clouds, you think that’s enough to provide us with enough opening for whatever plan you got.”
Aleph doesn’t lie here. “No, but it is now.”
Juno is appalled at that honesty of ignorance and taking credit for her observation.
Anna can only slightly laugh.
“You haven’t answered how we’ll get through into the city or shield? You some vague details of what they might be planning.” She glances over the data in VLIR.
“But what exactly are you using to get in, same methods you used to hack these machines? How did you manage that anyway?”
“That’s too far ahead we have to gather everyone we can now.”
-
Asaph and Anna had a short talk before they resupplied.
“Aleph…he’s doing better than you are judging.” She shoots to Asaph.
Asaph hadn’t spoken a word of critique about Aleph, he knew how Saiyah gets, not that he would dare criticism him, she was fine with that and often laid into him in rare moments more than he ever could.
But she hovered over him, protected him.
“Well Ms.Aleph.” He mocks her soft but womanly voice.
Her expression suddenly going sour and face burns under the broken bits of her helmet.
They seemed to lack any replacement parts.
“He’s doing far better than I would’ve expected but not good enough to have me thinking he’ll get us out of this.”
“He found us whilst we were held up for seven hours, then lead us in a charge that decimated an enemy unit, give credit the patrols we ran into were lighter than they should’ve been.”
“He can utilize those around him effectively.”–Asaph sighs somberly and fumbles the magazine as he tries to think. “Tactically he’s exceptional.”
“That Doesn’t make him a good leader on a strategic level.”
Asaph gruffly puts it, slamming a magazine into the buttstock of his bullpup VK419, the glowsights humming to life again.
Saiyah gives a downward head-tilt in Asaph’s direction “We’ll see about that.”
“It’s not as if I’m hoping he doesn’t do well…I just recognize well.”
Asaph gave it some thought
How Aleph carried them all in training, used to be pointman and draw fire in training, utilized them effectively.
Could pinpoint major threats in a battlefield and direct them to squash those threats whilst he extinguished others.
“He’s damn good, faster than us, stronger.”– Saiyah smirks at the hesitant admission and lowers her hand.
“Cool it I was suggesting have faith in him, not start loving all over him from afar.” Saiyah kids in high tone.
This has Asaph sharply giving his disdain in shutting off his visor and shifting VLIR down glaring at her.
Well…. that’s why I know he shouldn’t be expected to do much, his pain tolerance is twice that of any human I’d ever had pleasure of knowing.”
“Oh? Met a human before–We all have Asaph.” Saiyah responds.
“I’m saying he can be fast and strong all he wants, he doesn’t even know why we can take our pain and he cant, you ever heard him complain he doesn’t get those mental exercises, he thinks we don’t feel pain.”
“We do about the same as a human and yet he can’t realize we can just ignore it–he either stops all that mental weakness humans gave him or gets us killed.”
“He’s holding back like he’s in training, I saw the glare and way Juno spoke to him..that wench-!.” Asaph stops himself upon seeing Saiyah make a flat palm make slicing motion at her throat to signal ‘stop’.
He looks around to some shocktroopers not too far off that seem like they might be slightly ease-dropping and angry.
Aleph is like an annoying-little brother… He felt a bit too protective
Saiyah nods “She wants to test his resolve, it’s obvious it’s why I didn’t butt in or else I would have, and bent her spine…” Saiyah grimly and darkly adds.
It has Asaph regretting his words, because he believes Saiyah can read individuals like that, observant.
“And that human thing, it’s a big weakness.” Saiyah acknowledges “But you ever notice what it’s done to you? Even now we have worthless conversations, bicker, have idle chat…You know that’s something humans do, right?”
Asaph considers and looks down.
“I have faith Aleph can get this done, he was picked because he can be the heart of whoever he leads, you want a leader who can rally and utilize anyone in an instant. The strongest or fastest doesn’t matter.”
“He has eagle eyes even for a vampire, resilience and endurance bitterly built from what he’s gone through.”
“He’s more human, but that just makes his thinking more effective. He’s emotionally weak enough to utilize whatever strategy keeps the most of us alive, yet it’s still drilled into him to never sacrifice efficiency for humanity.”
She speaks as if for the few shocktroopers Juno sent to easedrop on them.
“What makes you know so much about humans think anyway Saiyah…Ar-are you secretly his sister?”
“God no!” Saiyah shoots a look of disgust at Asaph.
“He just disproves we remember everything.”
Asaph is confused at what that might mean, but as the hours draw by he finds no opening to draw answer.
Aleph took them with him, two Sergeants, Juno, and another. Along the desolate terrain his team took the lead.
But as Aleph drew closer, marching further and further, he could sense the robots these moments of quiet left him thinking, and his mind races with everything so far, the hours…How long has it been since he landed…
Ten hours from landfall–Finding his unit–Meeting with Juno. Twelve hours of this trek.
No, it’s going to be fourteen-.
His thoughts halt as he senses something, his eyes face left.
“What is it?” Saiyah doesn’t sense anything herself, and neither does Asaph as he steps up behind Aleph placing a hand on his shoulder.
Aleph can see something, strange forms made of script, snaking around. He’s staring at the wall of a mountain as they are about to lead and walk into a tough canyon,
yet far to its right is a path that leads more into the open glassed plains of dark grey scorched earth. It doesn’t appear to be the right way to find the other Sergeant’s.
They can hear distant fighting they’ve been following, and it’d be quicker to reach the source this
But Aleph isn’t sensing danger it seems with his vampiric senses, he sees bits of script, mechanical, binary forming shapes in the distance much farther than any undead or living thing should sense.
It’s like he has overhead, its unwanted information piling into his mind, as if he is being intoxicated by the very being and existence of distant machines.
Aleph suddenly pounds his foot into the ground, and the entire squad halts delaying to follow him,
the others far behind can sense their halt, and turn of direction.
Aleph has made a sharp turn of direction and change of pace that goes from a swift march to what is a swift jog.
His metal boots impact rock, stone amplified pressure crushing them all under his weight. Moving with urgency now.
Anna was stepping up close behind him, leaning toward his helmet and questioning “Aleph? why are we running–.”
The three of them are now following him in a run, it’s no issue but it seems less careful and a pace like this with the sounds a couple thousand seven-foot vampires could make from running would make their “stealthy” march less “stealthy”
But Aleph gives his answer.
“Quick-Response-Force, thirty-aerial units, unidentified tracked armored patrols and about, two battalions’ worth of humanoid combatants.” Aleph is robotic, overly formal and dead in tone.
Anna stops for a moment, falling behind the other three.
“Aleph?” Saiyah interrogated sharply yet with a hint of soft tone as if looking to identify a wound.
Aleph gives her no response, he’s moving silently, they all look to each other and shrug and follow behind him now.
In overhead view the massive caravan is shifting, Juno far behind is confused why they’re not heading between the jagged cliff-faces directly toward where she can hear distant fighting.
‘I’m in trouble…!’ Aleph rambles to himself in his mind.
His mind is working differently than he wants it to, he’s become as robotic as the danger he’s sensed., this his mind is cleared of his own thoughts and filled with what amounts to omnipresent tactical data
He can almost hear a faint clicking in his head.
Is this because…. He’s sensed it, that tower that city, he can sense this tower they are speaking of and the closer he gets the more it wears him out.
This march is getting to him because the less he thinks and mindlessly stalks around patrolling ahead of the logistic caravan the worse he gets
When you think about moving your arm, but thoughtlessly you can swing it anytime you want.
His Subconscious is learning that.
A mere trek has him partly understanding his abilities, he’s terrified, but is glad he isn’t showing it glad his helmet is closed, he keeps it from his squad.
Anna, Asaph and Saiyah are unaware and are merely following his orders but Anna his first to question his ‘intuition’ “Aleph, is this a gut-feeling? I don’t sense anything, no vibrations in the dirt…. I would at least feel–
She would at least feel that blood pumping into his skull, and a heartbeat.
Thump thump.
Anna sensed a heartbeat, so starved of blood in all this time her mouth grows slack.
She’s slowing up layering more and more bits of distance between her and Aleph, she nods to Asaph and Saiyah to which the two nod back to her now facing her confused.
a hunger gnawing at her, like when a human boy stuck out an arm for her and let her drink when she got lost and nearly starved as a youngling.
‘Why is Aleph’s heart beating…...’
As Aleph’s ability worked, his heart came alive, he became alive pain intensified as it lessened, his heart stopped beating, and he dies all over again.
That was the pain he felt in training, that was the torment, yet it’s defective, it’s not working as it should, it shouldn’t be bringing him back to life each time to use the modifications made to his mind.
But this Quantum Vampires entanglement is broken, this chord has been incidentally made to shift him from undead to alive each moment.
And he’s tormented by it.
It’s hours later, and when he finally speaks it’s vicious, the pain has pushed him past a point of retreat like before, past a point of halting of freezing up.
He’s become angry, it’s something human that has even Juno silent as he speaks.
“The skies been blotted out by ash, soot, clouds of fallout. We utilize in this darkness, strike from the dark. From here on out cut out your helmets!” Aleph’s command was simple, but whatever plan next was confusing.
They are now all with the thousands overlooking even more thousands of shocktroopers steeped in a bloody battle, encircled.
Aleph’s in pain, yet this has him working with urgency, he can barely keep himself sane, it’s a pain that has him almost collapsing at their feet as he leads them all.
He is twitching, he feels unusual…
Saiyah can barely recognize him, it’s like he’s become tortured, and this is all so sudden, she’s questioning what’s even happened.
Aleph is strange when they engage the machines that will reunite them with the rest of the one-hundred-forty-four in total Sergeant’s
He’s stiff, he hardly moves, but his aim is doubly more precise, he hits the machines in weakspots they haven’t noticed and is quick to identify their names.
Each ending with Caste. –Less identify their names, he can read them now..he can hardly see the
machines as machines anymore but as extensions of a hivemind but each one with an individual body to hop into, connect and depart from once that body dies.
The shocktroopers they found encircled offer less resistance than Juno did, because of how stiff Aleph has become, after the battle he steps toward them.
He’s silent for what amounts to an hour even amongst Vampires..
And when he does speak “We strike in seven hours.”
It’s painful, raw ..it has them thinking he’s convinced with how he’s come and regathered them.
Aleph’s different, Juno can recognize it, and it was in such a short time, she questions if her challenging activated something in him, but as they begin to change direction, drawing toward the tower she realizes this grows stronger as he nears it.
Eternia came to our academy…for him…’I almost heard it…those words… ‘prototype’ Juno thinks. Somberly.
They trekked forwards, leading into the jagged mountains, out of scope of those towering cities still casting illumination of their forcefield, an electromagnetic barrier that seemed to protect it from all assortments of orbital, aerial and surface based and sourced attacks.
They weren’t the first ones to attempt a plan in the same spirit.
Whereas most of the wasteland was empty and barren, it seemed as if there had never been a vampiric presence here as if they were invaders, but they began to see it, the lingering ruins in some regions became militarized notably close to the city,
abandoned artillery emplacements, long-guns as large as skyscrapers pointed toward the city they amrc too with melted barrels drooping down in sadness.
All beside them as they marched along this new path.
devastated wreckage, slumped corpses stuck out of arrow shaped fixed-wing aircraft long since decayed before they arrived, purple in color.
Long since lost Vis-Stasi who had been warring here earlier.
The jump from Persia to Fracturia was in total eight months, a delayed arrival to counter hostile predictions, it could’ve been an instant it was only thirty-lightyears not even work for a Terrorspace engine.
For Eight months the Vis-stasi would’ve been fighting it appeared, the Shocktroopers passed by decimated tank regiments, old rotted humanoid fighting vehicles and legions of headless bodies planted into the dirt..
The winds howled against them, taking side of the Mechra in their eyes, lightning cast down and struck the earth like the wrath of God has grown against the violence of both sides.
The moment Aleph had waltzed through this, disregarded it, they did as well, for a moment they would’ve faltered wondering if Aleph was leading them to their deaths, but his gait, his silence.
The way he treated the evidence of a similar veined assault as if it was invisible, had them sharing his confidence in plan, all of them save for Saiyah…who felt something was horribly wrong.