“This is helmet camera footage of the incident in question.”
The video had some basic information overlapping it. The bottom left read “Staff Sgt. O'Reilly”. The top left had a crude image of a human, likely representing the soldier wearing the camera, next to it was a heart rate reading. The bottom right listed “13:07:55”.
No image could be made out right away, it was obscured by dust or smoke. However, there was much to be heard. Incoherent yelling, the shuffling of bodies, and the instantly recognizable pops and booms of human small arms. My translator was doing its best to tell me what the combatants were saying, though only small bits were successful with all the overlapping noise, and every explosion briefly distorted the sound of the footage. However, the radio chatter from the ground was audible and subtitled on a second monitor next to me.
“Hornet Actual, this is Pylon-2 Actual. Mechanized infantry ambush at DMZ Barrier one-seven, one AFV still operational, medium casualties sustained, requesting immediate QRF. Priority, DMZ Barrier one-seven has been breached, how copy?”
“This is Hornet Actual, solid copy. All DMZ teams be advised: Pylon 2 has now engaged vehicles and attached infantry at DMZ Barrier one-seven /break/ QRF fireteams Quebec through Tango rendezvous with Pylon-2 in approximately seven minutes.”
After a few moments, the dust cleared enough to get a scene of what was happening. There was a group of human combatants, anywhere from ten to twenty individuals in this area. The landscape was green and hilly, and the soldiers were in what looked to be dug trenches in the side of a slope, as it was packed down dirt. This human was crouched down and moving quickly. To the right of him was the edge of the trench they were using as cover, to the left some kind of vehicle in front of the slope on a flat spot. It had a weapon mounted on it that was raining deafening fire over O’Reilly’s head as he ran by.
It was now that O’Reilly looked up ahead, the walls got a bit taller there and turned into a small section of tunnel. One human laid unmoving on the ground. Whether this was natural or if it was made for the purpose of providing cover I did not know. There was a break in the tunnel ahead, and what was clearly superheated plasma projectiles flew through this opening, striking the sand on the ground behind it and sizzling. O'Reilly looked at the impact for only a moment while running by, seeing that the dirt struck by the bolts briefly glowed bright red.
Moving toward two crouched-down humans, O’Reilly could see one operating a large weapon mounted on an artificial cover wall, the other seemingly feeding this weapon ammunition, boxes of more ammunition were piled next to them. He lowered himself and began to speak to the human not operating the gun, even with their individual radios they all had to yell to be heard over the fire.
“We need a Javelin on the right flank now! Fifty isn’t doing shit, they’ve got up-armored APCs crawling toward our position!”
“Should be one in the command bunker down the line!”
“Where the fuck is Red Bull? He’s supposed to be on that thing!”
“He’s inside! Band-Aid’s working on him!”
O’Reilly stood back up and began moving toward the small structure that was built into the side of the slope, yelling more profanities the whole way, and passing other humans in similar states of engagement.
They were moving through a low point in the trench when the wall right next to him was hit, slowing him down with a shower of dirt. A human ahead of him was looking over the trench and started yelling something incoherent, though one word could be made out: “incoming”.
Seconds later, a combat form rushed over the trench, slamming into the sidewall before falling in and turning to the human in front of O’Reilly, rearing up to attack. The humans had nicknamed these war animals we used “ravagers”. They were bred for combat support for their speed, often used in frontline operations like this. They also were excellent for the intimidation factor.
Though O’Reilly didn’t turn and run away from it like most. While its back turned, he ran up behind it and tackled it into the right wall with his shoulder. Using the opportunity while the ravager was momentarily stunned, he jammed his boot into its neck, holding its head on the ground. He then proceeded to place the barrel of his weapon on the creature's head, before unloading a gratuitous amount of rounds directly into it. What was once a fearsome and intimidating face of snarling sharp teeth was reduced to a red mush. The gruesome scene only lasted a couple of seconds at most, but the image would be burned in my mind forever.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
O’Reilly stood up straight, panting and looking down at his boot, which was coated in blood. His weapon fell out of his hands, dangling from the sling that connected it to him, before falling on his knees and then flat on the ground. This was where the video ended, as the screen went black and displayed two messages one appearing for a few seconds before the other:
>UNEXPECTED HALT [WND/INCAP/KIA?]
>END RECORD VIEW [2364.4.13/13:11:33]
I looked up from the screen at the human ambassador. It was certainly gruesome footage but I still was unsure what they had a problem with, it was just war. Though they were looking at me intently, with a harsh, emotionless look on their face.
“Why did you show me this?”
“You didn’t see the problem?”
“It’s combat footage, what was I supposed to see?”
“O’Reilly killed one of your war forms, seconds later he dropped dead, why?”
“When exposed to oxygen, war form blood emits gas toxic to most. Your soldier got covered in it, it’s not surprising.”
“So you admit to using biochemical weapons on our soldiers?”
“What? No. We didn’t engineer that, that's how the animal is naturally.”
“Chlorine and cyanide are natural, are they not?”
“That’s hardly the same thing. What if our blood was toxic to you humans? Would it be one of your ‘war crimes’ for us to fight you?”
“Don’t feed me that bullshit, you knowingly send these things to fight in a way that mandates we combat them in close quarters, and if we kill them, they’re toxic enough to incapacitate a soldier in under a minute.”
“This is hardly a violation, human. We’re not responsible for the way your fragile bodies react to the blood of an animal we happen to use for combat.”
“Fine. How about another example?”
The human hit a button on the remote in their hand again, beginning another video. This was more helmet camera footage, but the atmosphere was much different. These humans were dressed in black combat gear, five of them. They were slowly moving through some kind of jungle terrain at night, I did not recognize the location.
This time the name overlapping the footage was: “CovInfTpr. Vickers”. They were moving impossibly quiet through the area. These soldiers wore helmets that encased their full face this time, whether this was so they could talk freely in their radios, or as a response to the ravager gas, I wasn’t sure. Either way, seeing a reflective visor instead of a face was somewhat unsettling.
The human leading the group suddenly stopped and held up their hand in a fist. The group halted. This time their talking was much clearer without the distortion.
“Eyes up, motion detected, 11 meters ahead, one o’clock.”
Three of the humans aimed their weapons in that direction in varying degrees of cover, one crouching down, another leaning against a tree. Vickers, along with another human, turned to cover the rear of the group, frequently checking back at the front. They stayed that way for about a minute before the leader from earlier talked again.
“It’s gone. No further movement detected, stand down.”
Vickers lowered her weapon to a relaxed position and turned to face the rest of the group. The leader looked back down on their wrist again, where the motion tracker display must have been.
“No, wait- Incoming on our right flank!”
It was too late though, as one of our infiltration units jumped through the foliage, shooting one human and knocking another over, before shoving Vickers to the ground and jumping on top of her. Our soldier’s weapon seemed to be knocked away in the struggle, so they extended a gauntlet blade and began attempting to stab Vickers, some attempts sliding off armor, though a couple stabs made it through to her abdomen and shoulder.
Vickers was able to get on top of the infiltrator though, and after a continued struggle, she drew a smaller weapon from a case on her hip. It was a similar projectile weapon to the rifles they carried by the looks of things. They fired multiple rounds into the armor of the infiltrator to no effect, before shoving the weapon in between two armor plates and shooting point-blank, which finally resulted in a kill.
Similar to the previous video, they sat back panting, though this time the breathing sounded labored. She began to evaluate the damage to herself from the stabbing. Moments later, the rest of the group returned, save for the one that was shot, as they were killed immediately.
They all kneeled around Vickers, attempting to stop the bleeding before a loud screeching noise blared from the dead infiltrator, then the video went black again, displaying two familiar messages:
>UNEXPECTED HALT [WND/INCAP/KIA?]
>END RECORD VIEW [2364.4.23/03:27:12]
The human ambassador looked at me again, their eyebrows furrowed this time and their voice sterner in tone.
“The recording ended when your dead infiltration unit exploded, killing four.”
“Yes, the power armor infiltrators wear is not permitted to fall into enemy hands.”
“In other words, suicide bombers?”
“Of course not, that infiltrator’s armor clearly didn’t destruct until after the human killed it.”
“And what was this infiltrator’s plan exactly? Jumping into a group of five human combatants with a sidearm? Because clearly it couldn’t have expected to win a fight against all of them alone.”
“Their job was to eliminate the team, they tried to and failed.”
“That’s another thing, why did the armor wait to destruct until all our soldiers were right next to it? Why not explode as soon as it detects the wearer is dead?”
“It gives our soldiers time to disarm the armor if they are killed in a group. Your soldiers were there when it happened by coincidence.”
The human’s expression lowered more, and they set the remote down on the table. They then got close to me, their face inches from mine before speaking.
“You’d better hope you’re able to keep explaining away these incidents on technicalities. The very second we have concrete evidence, we will forego all restrictions, and I’m telling you now, neither of our species wants that.”
With that, they left the room, and our diplomatic meeting concluded.