A Day of Ends and Beginnings, Part 1
Takomaan, Ural Mountains - June 30, 2039, 6:00 AM local time
They all woke soon after the sun peeked out from over the jagged peaks of the Urals. Each member of the team had something to do. Alexandra and Magnus loaded their equipment onto a boat and rowed it across to the island. Samir went back to the helicopter to wake the pilot up.
And me? Gulichi found himself in the village armory, checking his equipment. At least Leyla was there too. While Gulichi cleaned his rifle, she was securing ammunition cases.
“Hey, Leyla. You okay with handling that ammo? I can help, you know.”
“Thanks, but I’m good,” Leyla said, “You don’t have to worry about my hands.”
As if to prove her wrong, one of the ammo cases slipped out of her hands and clattered to the floor.
“You sure?” Gulichi said. “I really can help. All I’m doing is cleaning guns.”
Leyla stared at the dropped case for a couple seconds. Then she bowed her head. “Fine. Just put them in that cart over there.”
Gulichi did so. “Say, do we really need that much ammo? It’s not like we’re fighitng Bielke.”
“We can’t be too prepared,” Leyla said, “Who knows what kind of traps and monsters are waiting down there?”
“It’s just an archaeological dig.”
“Have you not seen a single Israel Schmidt movie—” Leyla remembered who she was talking to. “Oh, right. Sorry.”
“Been meaning to see those, but I never got the chance,” Gulichi said, “I don’t think they were even translated into Mongolian. So…I don’t get it.”
They hung on those last four words for a few seconds. Then Leyla started laughing, slapping a nearby shelf so hard Gulichi was worried she would either knock it over or hurt her hand. “Uh, did I say something funny?”
“Oh, Perun, I’ve never heard of someone who hasn’t seen Israel Schmidt,” Leyla said, “Truly a classic of the 80s. That moment when he fights the cool swordsman in the bazaar and—”
“Nope, nope, nope!” Gulichi plugged his ears. “I don’t want spoilers!”
“Sorry, I got carried away there,” Leyla said, “But then…you really haven’t seen those movies?”
Gulichi waved at the open door, gesturing to the quiet village outside. “Do you think we’re in any position to watch big Babelsberg movies?”
“I was hoping the end of the Cold War would have changed things for you.”
“When the Cold War ended, all that changed for us was that the local Party chapter disbanded and they took down the Russian flag.” Gulichi walked out the door and pointed down the road at an abandoned shack tucked into a corner. “That’s their old headquarters right there. We use it as a storage shack now. Aside from that, we carried on as we usually did.”
“I…didn’t know.” Leyla looked down. “I must sound so entitled right now. Things got better for my family in Turkestan, so I thought the same was true for everybody after that war.”
“No, it’s okay.” Gulichi placed an arm around her shoulder and patted her reassuringly. “You couldn’t have known. If I was in your place, I’d have thought the same thing.”
There was no response, only a sharp gasp.
“Uh…Leyla, you okay?” Gulichi looked over and found Leyla had completely froze in place, her face red as beet soup. “Uh…Leyla…respond?”
“I…” Leyla stammered. “Uh…yeah…”
Honestly, she’s kind of cute like that…
Then Leyla pulled herself back together. “Enough of that. Let’s talk again when we’re off-duty. We’ve got a job to do right now.”
“Uh, uh…” Now Gulichi was the one being flustered for a moment. But taking a cue from Leyla, he also steeled himself, regaining his composure. “Right. Let’s get back to work.”
---
Gulichi heaved and pulled. His oar cut through the tranquil surface of the lake, waves rippling out with each stroke. On the other side of the boat, Magnus rowed in sync with him. With both of them working together, their boat steadily made progress across the lake.
“We couldn’t have gotten a bigger boat?” Magnus complained. There was barely any legroom. Most of the boat was taken up by crates containing Alexandra’s scientific equipment and Leyla’s weapons and ammunition. Not only were their feet cramped, but they couldn’t extend their arms long enough to maximize their rowing.
“Or taken fewer weapons?” Alexandra said. “Not like there’s anybody to fight.” She mimicked the claws of a mountain lion. “Unless you’re scared of some
mwraaaaar!”
“Raise your hand if you’ve seen at least one Israel Schmidt movie.” Leyla didn’t miss a beat.
Everybody but Gulichi raised their hand. Gulichi facepalmed and shot a glare at Leyla. “You’re never going to let that one go, aren’t you?”
Leyla stuck out her tongue. “Until you sit down and become enlightened.”
“So much for talking again when off-duty,” Gulichi muttered.
They eventually reached the island. Gulichi was surprised to see an intact dock at one beach. Nobody had ever been to the island in his lifetime. Maybe the Russians had built one back when they were still here. They wouldn’t have shared the same cultural taboos as them. Whatever the case, he and Magnus brought the boat alongside the dock. After Gulichi moored the boat with some rope, Alexandra got out first and unloaded the crates while Magnus kept the boat steady. Gulichi disembarked next and held out a hand for Leyla.
“Uh, what?” Leyla said.
“You shouldn’t stress your arms too much,” Gulichi said, “You’re probably tired from earlier.”
“I assure you, I can get out of this boat just—OW!” Leyla tried pulling herself onto the dock, but she fell back into the boat, unable to muster the strength.
“See?” Gulichi said. “Let me help.”
Leyla sighed. “Fine.” She extended her arm. Gulichi gripped her upper arm, making sure to avoid the injured areas, and gently helped her onto the dock.
“Thanks,” Leyla said.
“Yeah, no problem,” Gulichi said.
The four of them unpacked their equipment and began passing it out to each other.
“Here, Leyla.” Alexandra gave Leyla a handheld ground-penetrating radar unit. “This shouldn’t be too hard to use. I designed it to be very similar to a metal detector. Just flip the switch and wave it around.”
“But how will I know I found something?”
Alexandra held up a tablet. “With this. I’ll see whatever you’re scanning. And if I need a more powerful scan…”
“That’s where I come in.” Magnus took off the top of a crate. Inside was a large terminal. He flipped open the panel on top to reveal a computer screen and keyboard. “I’ll monitor things from here on the beach. If Alexandra needs more processing power, I’ve got it.”
“And what if we run into wildlife or…” Leyla mimicked a zombie. “You know…”
Gulichi slung a rifle over his shoulder and grabbed a shovel in both hands. “Don’t worry, I may know nothing about certain half decade old movies, but I know a thing or two about shooting stuff.”
“I would’ve been really concerned if you didn’t.”
Baku - 5:00 AM local time
It was thirteen minutes to sunrise. The sky was starting to lighten. In those early hours, with all but a handful of soldiers still asleep, complete stillness still hung over the city, as if the chaos surrounding it didn’t exist. And then it ended.
“…hey, do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“…engine noises.”
And then all hell broke loose. In the west, gas-powered engines proudly roared like lions as if to announce their presence. In the blink of an eye, the entire horizon was covered in a line of steel—painted brown with camouflage—which threw up immense clouds of dust as if a sandstorm were pursuing them. The first rays of the sun peered over the horizon from behind the Caspian Sea just in time to illuminate the advancing tanks amid the retreating darkness. Their steel, long since tarnished and dirtied and scratched by months in the field, didn’t gleam, but they shone with a brilliant determination matching that of their crews.
“I can’t raise the Commander! They’re jamming us!”
The clock hit 5:13.
The sun rose, and a ferocious iron rain fell from the sky, pouring upon the Crusader lines with nearly perfect precision, the artillery crews behind it having honed their craft over months of war. The limited resources of the Roman exiles and their Persian defector allies meant that the vast majority of shells were standard explosive rounds. The shock waves created by each detonation ruptured eardrums and caused significant internal damage to any Crusaders who hadn’t already been shredded by shrapnel. A minority of shells were armor-piercing variants which inflicted the same kind of devastation on bunkers and tanks as on the human personnel operating and defending them. Baku’s first defensive line was annihilated in the first volley. But then another volley rained down, followed by another, and another, and one more for good measure. Nobody heard the pained screams and pleas for mercy coming from the lips of the Crusaders, least of all the people killing them. After all they had gone through, the exiles had stopped listening, stopped caring. These Crusaders might not have been directly responsible for all of their suffering, but as soldiers of the tyrannical regime that did cause their suffering, they were the easiest targets for all of the pent-up rage within each exile that had been building for nine years.
And then the tanks, having drawn close enough, opened fire with their own cannons. They broke formation to evade counterattacks from what remained of enemy artillery and tanks, but they still hit what was left of the Crusader lines all at once, at all points. Their crews charged into the fray, completely fearless. Many of them no longer feared death at this point, not out of hubris that they simply couldn’t die, but the opposite—both Jerusalem and Persia had marked them for death, casting them out into the wilderness out of hatred and fear, and nothing they did was going to change that. So why not die on their own terms? Why not choose the way they would walk to the gallows? That way, at least their deaths would pave the way for the survival of twenty thousand exiles.
“Damnit! Hold the line, soldiers of God! Don’t let those heretics through, or I’ll kill you myself!”
---
On the other side of the city, at the edge of the Absheron Peninsula, soldiers crawled out of the gently rolling waves onto the rocky beach. Gebhard’s tank offensive and artillery bombardment in the west had drawn in most of the Crusader garrison, leaving the refineries in the east with only skeleton crews and a few tanks. That wasn’t saying much. Their mission wouldn’t be much easier.
“Sound off for equipment check.” “Liberator 1 ready.” “Liberator 2 ready.” “Liberator 3 ready.” The name found in the programming and engraved on the inside of Billy’s exosuit was High Mobility Multipurpose Powered Armor Exoskeleton Prototype 2, the same one formerly worn by Theodor Tesla. Prototype 1, Elias’ exosuit, and Prototype 3, which was Josh’s, had both been significantly damaged and were kept in Thea’s lab for reverse engineering. From what they had gathered in the internal documentation, the powered armor originated in a joint collaboration between the medical sciences and mechanical engineering divisions of Tesla Dynamic. The former wanted a machine that could help paraplegics and others with significant paralysis, while the latter wanted something that could help manual laborers move heavy objects.
When Jerusalem rose, those two goals were forgotten, and the research was applied towards a military application. The original frame remained. The exoskeleton that was at the heart of the powered armor was still there. The leg components could be operated with minimal muscle exertion, but they were integrated with the Panopticons to allow the mind to directly move them. The arm components could still apply force up to three times that of a normal arm, but as with the legs, they were connected to Panopticons and fitted with bladed gauntlets and armor plates. More armor plates wrapped around the front of the torso where originally there was nothing but support braces and load balancers to keep the whole thing from falling off and crumpling to the ground. The furthest left edges of Billy’s vision were taken up by the machine gun turret mounted on his left shoulder, a small gun which made up for its low caliber rounds with an extremely high ammo capacity, rate of fire, and laser-guided precision using data sent from the Panopticons. Although the powered armor was designed to work with a Panopticon, since Billy did not have one, they instead fitted the helmet component with a glass HUD screen placed over Billy’s right eye. Any movement commands the Panopticon would have sent to the limb components would instead be done manually, and Billy would have to aim the shoulder gun via an eye tracker in the HUD and fire with a trigger in his left gauntlet. For all of the armor, the final product was remarkably light. Billy felt no difference between wearing the exosuit and carrying his usual equipment, even with much of that usual equipment still strapped to his back.
The HUD blinked. Red dots appeared on its minimap, rapidly closing in. From their formation, it appeared to be some of the garrison, as well as an APC. “Incoming!” The muzzle flash of Billy’s assault rifle’s illuminated the still darkened warehouses and factories. Blood splattered against faded concrete and rusty iron. He stepped over bodies clad in both the tactical black of the Crusaders and the slightly different black of the Home Guardians. Slipping into the alleys, he took cover behind a stack of oil drums and reloaded. Under normal circumstances, an oil drum would offer no protection against any regular bullet, but in such dire times, oil had once again reclaimed its former economic and military value. The Crusaders could not afford to hit a barrel and spill out the precious black gold within.
Imagine that, the Crusaders caring more about oil than human lives. Though the same thing can be said about Persia now. The HUD quickly calculated the optimal angle at which to throw a grenade, which Billy instantly did.
Everything was going according to plan.
---
“You sure they can pull it off?”
Orders and status reports crackled from the various radios strewn around the situation room. The air was still a bit cold—this early in the morning, the heaters hadn’t had time to fully heat up the room. Gebhard Remmele peered at his map of Baku, occasionally using a pencil to update troop positions as reports continued to roll in.
“Gebhard?” Gebhard looked up and met the eyes of Shayan. The Persian commander handed him a cup of coffee. “The Liberation Legion?”
Gebhard took the coffee and sipped it. It was much lighter than he was used to. Their reserves of coffee beans were running low and had to be rationed. He was not exempt. “At the very least, I have full faith in them.” The Liberation Legion had survived impossible odds before. “After all, they survived April 2. I’d be making a tactical mistake if I
didn’t deploy them.”
Despite the lack of beans, Gebhard could tell the care that had been put into brewing this up. A hearty aroma still filled his nose, giving him memories of better days and better coffee. He missed Ali Qapu’s coffee.
“And what about the High Mobility Multipurpose Powered Armor Exoskeleton?”
“Shayan, you can just call it the exosuit or whatever.”
“Are we sure it’s combat ready?”
Gebhard held up a stack of files. “Thea’s got a rough idea of its specs and made Billy aware of it during his training. I know it’s only been a few days, but we’re pressed on time and did the best we could do. I’ve got faith he can make the best use of it and the rest of the team can back him up. They work very well together. A little
too well, if I have to be honest.”
“Too well?” Shayan said.
Gebhard nervously gripped his cup. “It’s almost as if their loyalty lies primarily with each other and the Liberation Legion itself…and not to me, Izinchi, or whoever else’s in command.”
The next sip of coffee suddenly tasted as bitter as he remembered it.
---
This was no different from any of the countless battles Ruby went through.
The fighting raged between the warehouses and across the parking lots. Cars and trucks exploded. Walls crumbled. The Crusaders, despite having their numbers significantly thinned by Gebhard’s offensive in the west, still vastly outnumbered the Liberation Legion. It was like that at the nameless citadel, in western Persia, across the former Reich, all the way back to Normandy. The unit’s numbers had been supplemented with more Roman exiles, from other rebel groups that had sought refuge in Persia at various points over the last few years and thus met the criteria—both in military experience and ideology—for joining. But that didn’t exempt them from death. One by one, a Liberator went down. One was torn to shreds by a machine gun and was subsequently avenged by Billy shooting the gunner and then cleaving the machine gun in two with his gauntlet. Another was taken out by a sniper who in turn was taken out by Ruby. Another was surrounded by an entire Crusader squad and riddled with bullets, but he detonated a grenade and took them down with him. “For Romanitas!” “For Wilhelmina!” “For Normandy!” Their battle cries were barely audible over the gunfire and explosions. Ruby had long since tuned them out. Their only purpose now was to keep their minds from falling apart. Everybody here had lost everything. Their homes, their families, their values, any hope of having a peaceful life at this point. She wouldn’t blame them if they just gave in to despair, in the absence of anything else. A normal mind would simply shut down after going through so much pain and suffering.
But the Liberation Legion’s minds were anything but normal.
They had gone through that despair once, before. Back in Normandy, she and Billy and the others had tried holding out against the Crusaders, only for it to get everybody in the town killed. Why did they continue to resist, then, even though they had nobody left to protect, no idea to fight for, no home to go back to? Maybe they were searching for a place to die. They had resigned themselves to the inevitability of their deaths, so they decided the only thing they could do was choose how they would die. That hadn’t changed. Angelica, Julian, and Tania may have convinced them to leave for Persia, but ultimately they only delayed their suffering. The Crusaders never stopped pursuing them. Persia ultimately kicked them out. They were still marked for death. Yet none of the Liberation Legion gave in to despair. They had people to protect now. They had an idea to fight for. They may not have a home, but they would make one for themselves instead of relying on the fickle whims of some benefactor. There was a good chance they would die in the process and never see the end of their journey, but they knew that. This was the path they chose. If they were going to die, it might as well be on their terms.
Such was the destiny of the Liberation Legion—those who no longer belonged anywhere else in this world but on the battlefield.
Frankfurt - 3:00 AM local time
Before, this had been just another one of Tesla Dynamic’s many data centers utilized by the corporation’s cloud storage subsidiary. They had been placed at optimal areas across the Reich to ensure the lowest possible latency times for any customers who wanted to store data on Tesla Dynamic’s servers. The convenience and the sheer size of the servers’ storage capacity made it an appealing target for politicization and militarization. The cloud became one of the first things Theodor Tesla personally granted Elias Anhorn and the committee leaders admin access to following Bloody Tuesday. All of the personal data stored there was then used to aid the committee’s crackdowns against subversive individuals, corporations who didn’t cooperate, and any remaining liberal political organizations. After the purges, the cloud was then used to host military software, notably the network that linked the Panopticons and other automated drones, to save the committee money that would have been spent setting up a separate cloud.
Now that reliance on outside infrastructure would spell the downfall of the Panopticons. The committee wasn’t stupid enough to put
all Panopticon-related servers in this building. Just as Tesla Dynamic’s cloud was hosted in servers across the country, the Panopticon network was similarly distributed. But this building hosted all of the primary servers, which formed the hub of the network due to some quirk in the programming. Theodor had probably wanted to keep ultimate control of the Panopticons within a short car ride of his office, perhaps as insurance in case the rest of the committee turned on him. Which they did.
The night was still dark. The only noises Commander Ludolf heard from around him were of his men rustling through the grass and bushes as they closed in on the data center. His infrared goggles—he was still getting used to wearing them instead of activating his Panopticon’s infrared sight mode—made out the outlines of Binar’s rebels a couple hundred feet away, moving into a flanking position on the other side of the main entrance. The full-body hazmat-style suits they wore reduced the amount of infrared radiation they were giving off, making it difficult for them to actually show up on the sensors. However, he could still see where the bushes and grass made way for them.
Ahead, several Hellhounds patrolled the area around the main door. There were no other methods of entry—the “office windows” on the “second” and “third” floors were false ones just for show, as everything was built underground. There were no other doors as well, a conscious design choice to force all would-be intruders to go through the same easily defended chokepoint. The Hellhounds were all stationed around that door, for there was no other reason they wouldn’t.
Feared on multiple fronts as nearly unstoppable killing machines, a Hellhound had the unsettling appearance and size of a medium-sized headless dog. It was made out of sleek black bulletproof carbon fiber-reinforced polymer that could absorb radar waves. The surface of the main body was angled in such a way that most gun-based attacks from common directions of fire would instead be deflected off, forcing the attacker to come in closer for a better shot at landing a hit. The Hellhound’s legs were made of the same material and built similar to a dog’s legs. Instead of hydraulics or electromagnetically operated joints, a complex system of electronics and fibers reminiscent of nerves and muscles, taken from a Tesla Dynamic subsidiary researching prosthetics, was used to reduce the rate of wear and tear and better simulate “real” movement. Instead of paws, its “feet” were designed in such a way to handle multiple types of terrain without sacrificing mobility or speed. Such a “foot” could be retracted at any time to deploy either a gun—a small low caliber weapon that was more akin to something between a nailgun and a railgun than an actual gunpowder-based gun—or a high frequency blade similar to a bayonet. In addition, the “foot” had a universal electronic port that allowed the Hellhound to interface with and ultimately hijack systems such as a computer, an electronic lock, and even cars newer than thirty years. From the “back,” the Hellhound could deploy a solar panel system to recharge or a rocket launcher to hit moving targets. It could identify targets in two ways. First was through its “head”’s pattern recognition system, similar to the algorithms used in driverless cars to identify pedestrians and obstacles. The other—in case that system was not currently in use—was via a shrapnel bomb deployed from its back, which would embed dozens of homing trackers in any targets in the immediate vicinity. If the target tried to run, they wouldn’t get away, even if they had a car. A Hellhound was designed to reach and maintain speeds of up to 65 miles per hour—80 at the maximum limit, in quick bursts—and if the target was still faster than that, it could always hijack a car. It was this versatility which led to their reputation as reapers of soldiers and civilians alike across Eurasia, particularly in India and Russia, where they continued to participate in the ongoing genocides of both nations’ citizens.
There were other drone models defending the data center. The aerial recon-type Kathartes, named after the etymology of the old name for the family of New World vultures, hovered overhead with a near silence thanks to its four bladeless rotors. Technically, the rotors still had blades, but they were hidden in the outer circular frame, much like in the bladeless fans Tesla Dynamic’s household appliances subsidiary used to make. However, the rate at which air went through the rotor was far higher than that of an equivalent fan, and so lift was generated as usual without the need for external blades that could cause complications if they malfunctioned. Each rotor was designed to adjust its angle independently of each other, making it easy to change velocity. It was equipped with a highly efficient solar array that allowed it to remain constantly airborne for several days, during which it would be in charge of scouting and reconnaissance operations to aid human Crusader forces on the ground. In addition, it provided target acquiring for Crusaders, Hellhounds, and other drone models through the use of its multiple 360 degree movement sensors, which recorded high definition footage of everything below. Enough data would be gathered to allow Panopticons to generate a live 3D recreation of the surveilled area. The Kathartes used the same pattern recognition software as the Hellhounds, but as a recon unit it had no weapons of its own. Some had been modified with low-caliber machine guns, but those had been carried out by the troops on the Mesopotamian front to the south, who needed more drones to supplement the rapidly falling numbers of both human Crusaders and Hellhounds.
In place of the Kathartes, damage would be dealt by the aerial attack-type Thronax. Just as that name implied, Thronax had a form almost identical to that of a bee. Originally designed by Tesla Dynamic’s agricultural subsidiary to replace actual bees in places where they had been killed off due to colony collapse disorder, they were adopted by the Athanatoi as a surveillance tool in 2029 before being coopted by the committee and Theodor Tesla during Bloody Tuesday. It was on January 1, 2030 that the Thronax claimed its first victim—former terrorist leader and convenient committee scapegoat Ocuil Zolin. In those days, the earliest models of the Thronax didn’t have a Kathartes to guide them, so they had to be designed with a large transceiver to receive orders from a nearby human operator, vastly reducing their range and performance. The development of the Kathartes eliminated that flaw. The transceiver was reduced in size—but kept around in case of emergencies or direct control from a human operator—while a infrared tracking sensor was added so the Thronax could follow the Kathartes’ laser. Once the Thronax was within range, it would use a similar pattern recognition sensor as the Kathartes to identify the target’s ears, nose, or mouth. Then they would burrow inside the target as deep as they could and detonate, inflicting significant brain damage if not death. The Thronax carried no other weapons. Even the detonation itself would not do any significant damage outside the target. But that was the whole point. A Thronax could easily slip into a room and detonate inside the head of the target, and to everyone around them it would appear the target had simply dropped dead, as if by divine intervention. And it could be deployed anywhere the solar-powered Kathartes—upgraded with charging ports and storage pockets for a “hive” of Thronaxes—could be, significantly expanding its range. The only problem was that it was extremely difficult and time-consuming to produce the miniature parts needed for each Thronax. The situation grew worse after Tesla Dynamic geared its production lines towards manufacturing conventional weapons and equipment, leaving little for the Thronax. The explosive materials used in the Thronax were similarly hard to acquire, and so many of the early Thronax models relied on the damage inflicted by the burrowing to kill their targets—that was how Zolin was killed. As a result, the Thronax was primarily tasked with mass surveillance in tandem with the Home Guardians and traditional surveillance devices. Even then there were never enough of them to cover every city, so they were concentrated in the most important or troublesome ones. Theodor, though, spared no expense for the protection of this server building and gave each Kathartes a full complement of Thronaxes. It was a shame, though, because Ludolf had known about the Thronax’s attack pattern and had everybody in the strike force wear the anti-infrared hazmat suits, thus preventing the metal bees from ever burrowing inside their bodies.
But even with all this knowledge, Ludolf was still nervous. There was still an extremely high chance the whole operation could go horribly wrong. The drones deployed here were state of the art, featuring the latest advances in Jerusalem’s AI and mechanical engineering research. While none of them were actually true self-learning AI, they nevertheless displayed a high level of sophisticated decision-making through use of machine learning and detailed decision trees, which allowed them to approximate the thinking process of a human without actually thinking. In other words, although they were merely following their extremely detailed programming, they were still highly dangerous. One Hellhound was enough to exterminate an entire neighborhood or small village, as had happened countless times in India and Russia.
“Everybody’s in position.” Binar’s voice came over Ludolf’s earpiece. He still wasn’t used to communicating the old-fashioned way.
I never remembered this much static in radio comms before. The P’s were always so clear… “General Dandolo, we are in position. Awaiting transmission of the Panopticon configuration.”
Ulm
“We hear you loud and clear, Commander Ludolf.”
The war room was fully operated. Heinrich sat in front of his computer, on which he had installed the control software for the Panopticons all Crusader commanders used. Frederica, Sigmund, and the other Crusader and rebel officers sat around them.
“There’s still time to back out,” Sigmund said. “We don’t have to do this.”
But the man didn’t look convinced. His eyes looked at Frederica, as if pleading to get her agreement.
“He’s right, Sigmund.” Frederica, though, couldn’t agree. “Ludolf’s and Binar’s teams don’t have the firepower to fight that many Hellhounds at once. I wish we could find some other way…but we’re out of time. General, when you’re ready.”
The computer screen was dark, except for a single text prompt.
“Upload new configuration? Y/N”
Heinrich’s hand hovered over the keyboard. A part of him laughed at the fact that now, at the decisive moment, he was the one hesitating, and not Frederica, the one who had every reason to hate the Panopticons.
Is there truly…no other way? What was this doubt? The plan had already been agreed upon yesterday. Was it concern? Was it a feeling that something might go wrong? But nothing had gone wrong in the test runs, with a network closed off from the main one. That didn’t mean something wouldn't go wrong now. No, he shouldn’t doubt himself now. This was a sound tactical decision. They didn’t have the firepower to take on that many Hellhounds. By hacking into the drones’ network with their Panopticons, they could not only minimize casualties but also commandeer the drones for their own uses.
Yes. There is no other way.
He pressed “Y.” “This is General Dandolo to Commander Ludolf. Check your P’s now.”
Frankfurt
Ludolf raised a hand to his temple and lightly tapped. His Panopticon took a few seconds to boot up. When it did, the UI was full of static, placeholder text, and corrupted data. A lot of the mental commands he had used before no longer worked.
Only enabled the bare minimum, huh? The general didn’t want to take any chances. He opened comms with the rest of his squad. “Report in.” Nobody else spoke, but his UI lit up with acknowledgements and biometrics from each of his men. There were no absences. A minimap then displayed the IFFs of each of Binar’s rebels. There were only a couple dozen of them as a whole. More people would only be a liability. “Alright. It’s time. Begin the operation.”
The two squads advanced on the server building. Just as they were about to enter Kathartes surveillance range, Ludolf tapped his temple again and concentrated, sending an override command to the nearest Kathartes. “Come on, come on…please work!” The Panopticon conjured up a map of the drone network. Drones and their connections with each other spread out like a red spiderweb in a cylindrical pattern around the server building. The Thronaxes were like needles jutting out from their designated Kathartes, which in turn had the Hellhounds on the ground leashed to them. At first, nothing happened. Then one Kathartes’ dot turned green, followed by the ones around it. The green rippled outward from each affected node, quickly consuming the rest of the network. Three Hellhounds rejected the override command and manually disconnected themselves from the network, their nodes remaining red. But they now had the tools to deal with them. “Kathartes 13-16, target Hellhounds 2, 6, and 7. Hellhounds 12, 19, 25, destroy the targets.” A minute later, a few flashes appeared in the darkness accompanied by a few gunshots, and the rogue Hellhounds disappeared from the network.
Now it was safe to use the radio. “Area secured.”
“All units, commence assault,” Heinrich ordered.
Ludolf nodded. “Squad, proceed.”
“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Moritz replied.
“Binar, you are clear to advance,” Frederica said.
“Hear you loud and clear,” Binar said, “Let’s go!”
With all of the remaining drones under Ludolf’s control, they posed no further threat. The rebels approached the entrance first, passing frozen Hellhounds.
“Never thought I’d see the day when I could just walk by those things,” Binar said.
Ludolf had one of the Hellhounds interface with the front door lock. Leveraging the processing power of the entire drone network, the lock’s encryption was overwhelmed in seconds, and the door slid open, revealing darkness within. Ludolf switched his Panopticon to night-vision mode, and everything lit up in a neon green. With him and Binar taking the lead, they found the stairwell and began their descent. Down below lay the servers that shackled them.
As they slowly and quietly descended step by step, Ludolf’s Panopticon picked up a faint clacking from further below, something so faint it wouldn’t have been heard by his ear even without the hazmat suit getting in the way. A quick automatic search in the database, drawing on previously gathered combat data, identified it as a Hellhound. Ludolf wasn’t surprised. It made tactical sense to deploy more drones within the building itself, separated from the outside network in case something happened to the first line of defense. A second after he finished that thought, the Panopticon picked up on the approaching Hellhound’s servos whirring in a manner that indicated a shift from patrol mode to combat mode. Half a second after that, the Hellhound charged up the stairs.
“Enemy approaching, prepare to engage!” Ludolf readied his assault rifle. “Weapons free!”
Muzzle flashes lit up the darkness as dozens of bullets tore into the Hellhound just as it appeared on the landing below them. Most of the bullets were deflected off the Hellhound’s body, but a few landed at opportune angles. One of the drone’s legs was torn off, and sparks flew from the parts of the body that had been punctured. Despite its damage, the Hellhound still tried climbing the stairs. It got three steps up before it finally collapsed. Before it could deploy its shrapnel bomb, Moritz took out its central processor with one more bullet. “Target neutralized.”
“Good work, Sergeant Moritz. All units, remember to conserve your ammunition. We are not leaving this building until the objective is secure.”
“Copy that,” everybody replied.
“How are you holding up, Qazai?”
“Commander Ludolf, we need to hurry,” Binar said, “Who knows how many reinforcements have already been requested?”
“Right, let’s continue on,” Ludolf said.
Isfahan - 6:00 AM local time
Alex was alone in his prison cell. When he had awoken, Josh was gone. The chain that had kept him shackled to one side of the room was still there, but it had nobody to shackle now. The cell was the same size as it always was. But strangely enough, without Josh it felt even smaller than before. With the whole cell to himself, he could see how close Josh’s side was to his own. Was the door always that close to his small cot? Was the ceiling always so low?
The stillness felt off to him. Somehow, his mind had gotten used to the constant arguments and debates with Josh, and now that he was gone, it was almost as if he…missed him. No, that was impossible. How could he be missing someone who killed his parents and almost killed him and his friends multiple times? A man who was a complete monster, devoid of any redeeming qualities? It was unthinkable.
Not that it mattered now, when he was going to die in a few hours. At least he could enjoy his final moments in peace and quiet. How was everyone else doing? Alexandra and Magnus he knew could handle themselves, but Thea? After everything that happened to her, he hoped she was okay. His heart ached more thinking about her than it did dreading his imminent death. He was fine with dying today if it meant Thea could live on. But if she was still in danger…no, he couldn’t comprehend that. He didn’t want to comprehend that. It would mean he was dying for nothing. After surviving for so long against all odds, that would be the worst.
Wonder what’s going on outside. Inside the prison, he had been kept away from other inmates, so he was quite behind on the news.
Did the Romans get away and find a new home? Probably not, it’s been too soon since they left. They’re probably stuck in Mesopotamia right now. What about Persia? Any signs the people realized what they’ve done? Nah, I’m sure they just gave Mozaffar more power. Not like it matters now. I’m not going to see the end of the day.
---
Morning broke over a certain neighborhood of Isfahan. The quiet and empty streets were unblemished with bomb craters or bullet holes, almost as if there was never a war in Isfahan. The trees swayed in a gentle morning breeze. A few birds had begun to sing just as the last of the lampposts turned off. The only other things Mozaffar heard as he trudged down the sidewalk, alone, were his own footsteps and the distant sounds of the morning rush hour in downtown. He had foregone the protection of his security escorts, but he knew they were watching from nearby blocks. They had blended in among the commuters and pedestrians getting their morning coffee. Each storefront was adorned with flags of varying sizes—from small pennants hung in the windows to full size ones fluttering in the breeze—all bearing the lion and sun of the Persian monarchy and the green-white-red tricolor of modern Persian meritocracy. The three colors respectively stood for honor, peace, and courage.
A young boy passed Mozaffar, his bright smile and innocent laugh cutting right to Mozaffar’s core as he held his parents’ hands on their way to breakfast. Despite his efforts to look away, the mother recognized Mozaffar. “Thank you for saving our nation!” she said before continuing on her way.
What did I save in the end?
He took a shortcut through a park, but there were still many people there. There were many older adults here. Old men played chess on the picnic tables while recounting stories of their youth—these days it was mainly stories from the last war. Old women tossed breadcrumbs to cooing pigeons. Priests were issuing calls to the morning prayer from beside a gently burning brazier. Opposite them, political campaigners waved flags and proudly held up portraits of Mozaffar.
“The capable military leadership of our Minister Mozaffar has seen Persia rebound from the chaos of April 2 while minimizing the number of Persian casualties. There can be no doubting the effectiveness of his humane and pragmatic strategy. The day will come when Persia, the last bastion of freedom and meritocracy in a sea of totalitarianism and anarchy, marches into the ruins of Constantinople and brings down the evil Reich for good!
Pâyande Bâdâ Irân! Pâyande Bâdâ Mozaffar!”
Mozaffar couldn’t look at the campaigners while they held up his face and praised his name, almost like a prophet or god. He had been forced to listen to them spouting the same tired stupidity every day during his commute. It was all so annoying and so clearly false. If only they knew what he had really done, they wouldn’t be exalting him so much. But in such terrible times, such rhetoric was what the people loved to hear. They didn’t doubt the propaganda’s authenticity. Even if they knew it was false, they probably wouldn’t care. They still wanted to believe they were right, that Persia and its people were the good guys, despite the horrible sin they had committed just days earlier.
The horrible sin
he had committed because they demanded it.
Why hasn’t anything happened to me in my commute yet? I sent away my bodyguards, you know…
Half an hour later, he arrived at Ali Qapu Palace and was waved in through the front gates. The honor guard snapped to attention and saluted as he passed by. “Welcome, Minister, sir!” Inside, not many people had clocked in to start their day yet. The old royal staff had been downsized after Gunduz was “hospitalized,” for fear of them asking the wrong questions. They had been replaced by staffers and bureaucrats brought over by Parviz and his colleagues when they moved in, many of whom didn’t share the same sense of decorum as the previous inhabitants of the palace. Mozaffar winced and nearly coughed as his nose was filled with the pungent smell of hashish. A former reception hall, previously used to receive heads of state and other VIPs, had been turned into a recreation room for these staffers, complete with TV screens showing sports reruns and video game consoles that were probably stolen from the shahbanu’s collection.
Haven’t we done enough to that poor lady? As he walked past the room, he provoked jeers from within.
“Hey, it looks like our glorious man of the people’s got something on his mind!”
“Imagine that, the hero who killed eighty-three thousand Crusaders and kicked out twenty thousand Roman interlopers draws the line at blazing it.”
“He should mind his own business or leave, like Abbas did.”
He had gotten used to them trash talking him like that, but bringing Uncle Abbas into this? “Listen here you little—”
“Ah, Minister Mozaffar!” Parviz walked up to him. “Good morning!”
Even worse, damnit. “Morning, Parviz. You’re here early.” Fortunately, the vice chancellor hadn’t noticed Mozaffar’s near outburst.
“How could I not? I was watching the examination results as they came in. Pulled an all-nighter for
your sake, you know.” Parviz faked a yawn and casually shrugged. “Anyways, I’ve sorted out your agenda for today. We’re going to the hospital in three hours to oversee Josh Johansen’s Panopticon extraction surgery. We’ll be there for almost the whole day, so bring some food. I’m sure the palace cafeteria’s got something ready. After that, we have the victory gala. We won’t have much time between leaving the hospital and heading to the gala, so plan accordingly.”
“What are you, my mother?” Mozaffar complained.
“I’m the one keeping you afloat, Mozaffar,” Parviz said, “Without my help, you wouldn’t be the hero of April 2, savior of the Persian nation and meritocracy, defender of free humanity. The people would see you for what you really are, a fraud.”
Maybe they should
see me like that. “Whatever. Just get me the printed schedule.”
Parviz practically shoved the schedule into Mozaffar’s hands. “Right here. I’ll see you when we’re ready to leave.” He turned and walked away, leaving Mozaffar awkwardly standing in the middle of the hallway.
Outer Isfahan
“One scone please!” Angelica crouched on top of the bakery, out of sight of the pedestrians and security cameras. The smell of freshly baked pastries, complemented with the gentle humming of ovens and the chatter of customers and bakers, wafted up to her. Her mouth watered and stomach grumbled. She hadn’t eaten that much for breakfast. She so desperately wanted to stroll into the bakery and order something, but she couldn’t. Her appearance would immediately give her away.
The happy Persian family exited the bakery, a small paper bag in the mother’s hands. They looked away as a young European woman entered.
“Hi, uh, one scone please?” Angelica heard her saying.
“Don’t you know you’ve taken enough from us?” the baker snapped back.
“I’m sorry?”
“You think you’re equal to us? After everything you’ve done?”
“I, wait, no, I just wanted to buy a scone…”
“Aw, you’re crying now? Crying those crocodile tears.”
“It’s just a scone!”
“And you’re just another customer. I have the right to refuse service to anybody. Which I’m doing right now.”
“But I can pay! I have cash!”
“I don’t want your money, stinky Roman pig. Go ruin some other country.”
“I’m not even Roman, I’m Russian!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that a dozen times, you aren’t fooling me. Now get out before I call the cops, you thief!”
The others in the bakery chimed in. “Yeah, get out! You don’t belong here, Jerusalemite! Persia is for Persians!”
The door slammed open, its chimes swinging wildly, as the Russian woman left in tears. Angelica started boiling with rage, but she stopped herself. Julian’s plan needed her to stay off the radar.
You can have all of the scones you want once everything’s done. Stick to the plan.
Leaving the bakery, she crept through the alleys, making her way closer and closer to her destination. At the end of the block, the street ended in a row of barricades. Two tanks, three machine gun nests, and a squad of Persian soldiers patrolled the area, while helicopters and drones circled overhead. It would be tough getting past them. But Julian had figured out a route to get her through.
Don’t worry, we’re coming to get you. And then we can fix everything that’s gone wrong.
Angelica took a step forward and was immediately greeted with over a dozen rifles being pointed in her face.
“Well, add that to the list of everything that went wrong,” she said.
She stumbled backward and tried to run, but three soldiers tackled her to the ground.
Ali Qapu Palace
Mozaffar’s phone chimed. It was Parviz calling, again With a sigh, he answered. “What is it now?”
“We caught a Roman spy,” Parviz said.
“A…spy?”
“Yes, she was caught attempting to breach a military blockade. You know the one.”
Mozaffar’s eyes widened. “Are you sure it’s a Roman spy?”
“Who else would try running that blockade? Certainly not Jerusalem.”
“What do you plan to do?” Mozaffar immediately regretted asking.
“We will execute her with Alex Humboldt.”
Mozaffar did a double take. “What?!”
“This is an act of espionage by a foreign power, intended to free a dangerous enemy of the state. We must send a message to all of her comrades. This is the fate that awaits them all.”
“Shouldn’t we put them on trial first?”
“We’re at war, Mozaffar! There’s no time for that! And besides, shouldn’t you be worried about your schedule today? You’ve got that victory gala later, and I swear you better not let all of my efforts go to waste, you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Your motorcade leaves in half an hour.” Parviz hung up.
Mozaffar put down his phone and stared off into emptiness.
---
Feeling much better now, although I'm still coughing a lot. I managed to finish this chapter yesterday after finishing and uploading a ridiculously long TESB post. It was mostly finishing Angelica's segment and the last Mozaffar one. I had written everything up to the paragraph with "One scone please!" before vacation and just had to edit it. The next few parts haven't been started yet, but I thought you guys have gone long enough without a new chapter.
And it may have something to do with posting in TESB yesterday...
