Don’t make me say I told you so...again. Last call SPCE
I’m tired of saying I told you so in the comments sections. Read this DD to get rich
Listen up autists. I know a war is going on but you would be stupid to not yeet some money at this. I know, we have talked about it before but things are really starting to cook this time. There arent enough rocket emojis to explain what is about to happen so Ill give an obligatory 10.
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
The moment is finally upon us for SPCE to start making serious moves and this is pre-revenue, pre-flight, and pre-publicity. So what is all the hype, why are people confident in its future, and why are they right? One this is for certain this is NOT, I repeat NOT, just a space tourism company.
Let me first introduce you to the staff and some key players:
🚀Founder - Sir Richard Branson: Founder of the Virgin Group (Virgin Mobile, Virgin Atlantic, etc.) 🚀CEO - Michael Colglazier: Former President and Managing Director of Disney Parks International 🚀 (Chief Space Officer) - George Whitesides: Former Chief of Staff NASA 🚀CFO - Jon Campagna: Former Corporate Controller of ICON Aircraft Inc.
Noteworthy Investors: 🚀Vanguard 🚀Bank of America 🚀Morgan Stanley 🚀ARKQ and now ARKX 🚀Boeing 🚀Chamath Palihapitiya (Also a Virgin Galactic Chairman) 🚀Cathie Wood
Partners: 🚀Boeing ( investohopes to be a part of the hypersonic point-to-point travel ) 🚀Rolls Royce ( designing and developing engine propulsion technology for high speed commercial aircraft as well as interior design ) 🚀NASA ( a plethora of tasks including transportation to the ISS, research, and hypersonic point-to-point travel ) 🚀Lockheed Martin ( developer of the Supersonic X-59 plane which will be used for testing hypersonic travel ) 🚀Under Armour (suits)
Timeline of events:

1. 🚀Q4 2020🚀: The FAA test flight occurred but it "failed" according to stupid people. Smart people know it was a successful test of the machines fail-safe technology. It was due to a software issue that didn't allow the rocket to ignite. This is a success to smart people because the biggest concern before was "wHaT iF iT bLoWs uP!?" but now that the fail safes have been successfully tested, that is no longer a concern. The software issue has been identified and TODAY they are launched Eve (the mothership for gliding tests, this is an indicator that they will be announcing a new test flight window in the next week or so)
2. 🚀Q1 2021🚀: Sir Richard Branson has been on several media outlets quoted saying that he himself will take a flight up marking the start of commercial operations in the next 2-3 months. This is the start of publicity and marketing, and the re-launch of ticket sales. So far roughly 600+ tickets have been sold and these will be the first clients to go up. Notable clients include: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Russell Brand, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, and Ashton Kutcher. The interior of SpaceShipTwo has 16 cameras which will be engaged during the duration of the flight and will capture these stars, quite literally in the stars as they float around in microgravity for several minutes. This will be recorded and surely uploaded to their social media. I imagine some of these individuals like Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga will attempt to shoot a music video using this footage. Ticket sales will also resume again at this point.
3. 🚀2021🚀: For the rest of 2021 Virgin Galactic will be sending clients to space all the while they will be pushing profits in R&D for future endeavors, such as the hypersonic point-to-point travel which will be discussed later. They will also be building out more Spaceports and ships in order to conduct more flights. According to the last investors meeting, each spaceport is predicted to generate $1B/year.
4. 🚀Around 2025🚀: The hypersonic point-to-point ship will be complete and ready for commercial operation. This will revolutionize human travel. To put it into perspective, the International Space Station circles the globe in 90 minutes, and when this plane is complete, so will we. Preliminary indicators suggest that a trip from NYC to Sydney, Australia would take roughly 30 minutes.
5. The possibilities are as limited as space and I won't make your eyes bleed as we talk hypotheticals. I do however want to address highly likely revenue streams we could expect.

Revenue Streams (amount of revenue measured in rockets):

1. Space Tourism🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
2. Hypersonic point-to-point travel🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
3. Space Force https://spacenews.com/traditional-launch-services-may-not-suit-the-needs-of-the-future-space-force/🚀🚀🚀
4. NASA Contracts ( astronaut training, payloads, taxi services, etc)🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
5. Booster Services 🚀🚀
   
   1. Now, there is no news on this, but this is my prediction and what I would attempt to achieve. As hypersonic travel becomes the standard way for humans to traverse the globe there will need to be a way to make it possible and affordable for the general public. Virgin Galactic cannot achieve this on their own and current airlines (Delta, Southwest, etc.) cannot convert to Spaceship companies either. With Virgin Galactics unique approach and design, they could become a booster service for airlines. Airlines will need to design a space plane that is capable of hypersonic travel and Virgin Galactic will use their mothership to carry these planes to sub-orbit.
6. While Virgin Galactic is currently operating in the sub-orbital space, I am sure they will begin working on deeper space projects for asteroid mining, moon operations, etc.
   

Common Objections and Rebuttals:

1. Who would be able to afford this and even if they could, why would they?
   
   1. There are around 42 million people in the world with a net worth of $5 million where $250k is extremely affordable. The price of the ticket is the same price of chartering a yacht for the weekend. Except instead of playing on a boat for two days, you go to space for a few minutes. Yes, the complete trip lasts around 90 minutes, but we are talking about going to Space. Virtually anyone would say that's something they long to do because that is human nature, if you look at people with high net worth they spend their money on much more ridiculous things. Not only is it human desire to want to go, it has the "Johnson's effect" as well. The Johnson's effect is an old sales analogy, where someone in your neighborhood would say "Oh did you see the Johnson's got a new Porsche?" Inclining you the observer who has the capital to feel the competitive nature and want to also have said clout. So yes, there is very much latent demand on this service. As explained earlier there are already 600+ pre-sold tickets including highly renown individuals and 900+ who have reserved a slot for a future ticket purchase. Note that these ticket sales only stopped because Virgin Galactic stopped them and will resume ticket sales Q1 2021. Virgin Galactic could currently handle 50 flights per year per plane and has recently finished their second plane, meaning they can handle 100 of the 1400 pre-purchased flights over 2021. So, even as Virgin Galactic scales, there is enough customers already to cover operating costs and the development of new planes for several years.
2. Wow so you get to go to space for all of two minutes?
   
   1. People who say this are people who can't afford it. That might sound harsh, but it is that simple. Very few humans would pass up on this opportunity for such a magical thing if they could actually afford it.
3. It's not really "space"
   
   1. Who cares? You get to experience microgravity and float around. You get to see the curvature of the Earth. You get to officially be called an astronaut. The media will not be attempting to point out this very minute, arrogant point. Again, only people who can't afford it will be pointing it out purely out of jealously or disbelief in the Space Age that is upon us.
4. People only invest in this because they can't invest in SpaceX.
   
   1. Not true. First off, they are completely different markets. SpaceX is orbital, Virgin Galactic is sub-orbital. A SpaceX tour would take you into deeper space for around a week and costs somewhere around $52 million. Secondly, even if SpaceX is a direct competitor I hardly see how that's a bad thing. Competition drives commerce, and to have Elon Musk being your direct competitor, that would only bolster Virgin Galactic. Thirdly, there is potential for partnership between these two companies in the future. A collaboration of completely different and unique technologies to overcome the challenges of the Space Age. Finally, SpaceX news and Elon Musk hype will mean space news and space hype, also helping Virgin Galactic. When/if SpaceX IPO's I will definitely scoop up some of that, but I won't sell SPCE to do so.

What I imagine by 2035:
Spaceports all across the globe, connected by the Virgin Hyperloop (for those who don't know it's another Virgin project that allows humans to travel faster than the speed of sound through tunnels). At this point, Virgin Galactic will already be partnered with other major airlines who have created space planes, very much reducing the cost and barrier to entry. Meaning any human who would have normally have flown "first-class" will now have the ability to end up anywhere on the planet in under an hour. Virgin Galactic will also partner with shipping companies and if you're impressed with 2 day delivery, how does 2-hour delivery sound? Packages moved via space plane, then into a hyper loop to your distribution center, and finally automatically driven to your home via autonomous AI. All the while Virgin Galactic is innovating new technologies for deeper space missions, working with the Space Force, and continuing space tourism.
This is not some flashy new technology, this is the revolution of human travel. This is not sci-fi, it is simply sci. The future truly is now and we all have an opportunity to be a part of it. Thanks for listening and big disclaimer, I clearly own SPCE shares, because at this point, it doesn't make sense not to.
TLDR: I know you've heard about SPCE before and I know we are at war and I'm holding strong 500 shares GME @ $17, but the rockets are LITERALLY fueling up and you will LITERALLY miss the trip to space if you don't buy before the announcement. Last time it was announced the price was around $23 and ran up to $35, back down to $23 after the "failed" test flight. SPCE is currently sitting at $33. The test flight window will be announce anywhere within the next week or two and will probably run up to 37-40. After it is successful we are looking at 50, after Branson goes up around 70. Once other celebrities start going up and blasting it on their social media we will easily break 100. I don't know how many wins I could post before you retards start listening to me. I took out a 12k loan 4 months ago and now have 96k. The play, I would buy shares. God forbid this test flight has a malfunction as well you dont want them expiring worthless. But hold on til the end of 2021 and youll be loaded. u/DeepFuckingValue yeet a million at this and you'll easily become a $50 millionaire over the next few years. I would if I had more money.
TLDR2: If my TLDR was too long and you didnt read. Buy fucking SPCE, you're just throwing cash away. Been calling this one since 17

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A Great Herd Main Battle Tank Type XIX. IXTB-38A8r4. One hundred fifty tons of armor, molecular circuitry, guns, and hoverfans. Designed 638 thousand years ago and never having needed a single upgrade. A 180mm main gun that fires an eight pound plasma shell. Two rows of 80mm vertical launch systems capable of delivering a variety of variable fuzed munitions. A driver's, tank commander's, communication's officer's, and an electronic warfare officer's external 18mm quad barreled plasma machinegun that could be controlled inside or manually by partially exiting the appropriate hatch. Capable of reaching a top speed of nearly forty miles an hour. The crew can survive inside the compartment for up to 11 hours without discomfort. Single layer medium grade battlescreens often used on light frigate naval vessels. Waterproof, soundproof, able to be piloted and operated even in vacuum thanks to sixteen antigravity pods, although at a much slower speed and slower response.
The mighty armored fist of the Unified Military Council, in support of the Unified Civilized Council.
According to my trainers, the last time a single tank had been damaged to the point that it could not fight, excluding operator error or sabotage, was nearly 23 thousand years prior to my introduction to my first tank.
I was excited as I inprocessed. I was to be assigned to one of the most modern tank designs around, military war machine made manifest. Perfection achieved and domination assured. I was almost eager the day I was allowed to enter the motorpool and taken to where the tank I would be a crew member of was parked.
It was love at first sight.
My fellow crewbeings thought I was a bit insane, to be honest. I worked on my tank, learning everything about it that I could from the neo-sapient mechanics. The driver was happy I could start it up for maintenance, meaning he could continue on with his long running alcohol related binge.
Within a month I could tear apart my gunner's sight, even the firing mechanism, and rebuild it from spare parts found in the motor pool supply shed. I even knew workarounds and field repairs that existed only in esoteric manuals and passed down in whispers between mechanics.
I earned my "gunner's bite" at my first live-fire range, where I learned that it was best if I let my helmet push back a little instead of pushing it against the padded sight. Pushing my face against the padding, using only my forward eyes, concentrating on putting each shot right where I wanted it.
Everyone took notice when I scored a perfect 1,200 points.
Some were happy for me, considered what I'd done proof of the Great Herd's might.
Others were jealous, starting whisper campaigns that I had somehow rigged my software to give me an illegal edge during live fire gunnery practice.
My fellow gunners led the campaign to have my accomplishment gone over with a fine toothed comb, many of them accusing me, to my face, of cheating.
My gunner's station was pulled apart, each block of circuitry examined, each byte of firmware and software gone over, even the gearing examined closely to see if I had somehow pulled off the shroud at the base of the barrel and adjusted the microgears that did the minute changes to barrel angle and elevation.
In the end, my score would have been stricken from the record, since my gunner's sight had gotten early maintenance, the neo-sapient maintenance crew replacing it twenty years before necessary. I would have been sent to do manual labor as punishment, or perhaps worse.
There was even talk of a court martial to put me in my place.
Mil-Sec officers had arrived in our motor pool to place me under arrest when the sirens began to wail. Everyone looked around confused, even the Mil-Sec officers, at the tone of the siren.
It came over my implant at the same time as everyone's else, my lockout being lifted.
ATTACK IMMINENT -- PRECURSOR VESSELS IN SYSTEM IN FORCE
My platoon Most High began rearing up and down, screaming at all of us to get into ranks for inspection. The platoon Second Most High began galloping in circles, shrieking that we were all going to die.
He was wrong.
Only most of us were going to die.
--Excerpt From: We Were the Lanaktallan of the Atomic Hooves, a Memoir.
"I hate landing into an ongoing fight," General No'Drak said, staring at the various holotanks. He had been in the same place for six hours, watching everything take place. The counter-attack, the first in the five days since Confederate forces had arrived, was moving in fits and jerks.
"It's a mess out there," General Moffeta said, watching a map of the megacontinent where her air support assets were spread around widely.
"Are you concerned, Most High?" Grand Most High Ge'ermo'o asked.
"Always when even a single one of my men are engaged in combat," No'Drak admitted, tapping a cigarette against the railing he was leaning against. "There are a million ways this can all go sideways on us."
"Sir, signal from Space Force!" came the cry from below.
"Throw it up here," General No'Drak snapped, bringing up a secure holo-port.
The twinkling cone resolved into a tired looking Rigellian female with admiral's pips on the brow of her armored vac-suit. She had bags under her eyes from stress and her eyes were bloodshot. Static kept rippling across the hologram and General No'Drak knew it was from phased wave plasma motion guns and C+ cannons firing.
"General No'Drak here, can you hear me, Admiral?" the Treana'ad said, slowly and distinctly.
She spoke for a second, obviously to someone outside of view, then looked forward. "Admiral HawGawk here, General," the rippling went over the hologram and she waited a second. "We've got a status change out here."
"Go for sitrep," No'Drak said.
Ge'ermo'o watched interestedly. He had seen how his fellow Lanaktallan reacted to a changing situation obviously getting worse and was curious as to how the lemurs would react.
"Eighty plus point sources just came in at the Hellspace limit. The stellar stabilizers and the Hellspace interdiction craft from the Crusade of Wrath helped. We have eighty plus Harvester Class, including what look like mostly new classes, out near the far gas giant," the Admiral said.
"I repeat back, Eighty plus Harvesters at the far gas giant, primarily Type-III," No'Drak said.
The Admiral nodded. "At least three hundred are coming straight at you. I've detached two Battlecruiser Groups to defend the planet, but the heavy hitters have to stop those Harvesters from spamming ancillary vehicles and swarming you under," she said. The lights around her flashed and she rocked slightly to the side. "We were right not to break up into hunter killer groups to go after the last of them, looks like the initial wave was simply to pull us out of position."
No'Drak nodded. "So, whatever gets through, we're on our own," he said gravely.
Ge'ermo'o felt a little bit of fear at that.
"Sorry, General. Space Force has its hands full up here," she said. "We've already sent out a distress beacon. The Crusade ships have sent out a call for reinforcements, but with the Case Omaha on TerraSol, options are limited for them."
"Understood. Have you tactical forward what they can. Good luck, Admiral, and Fight the Ship," No'Drak said.
"Pound the Ground, General," the Admiral said, and then she was gone.
No'Drak tapped the cigarette a few times against his bladearms and Ge'ermo'o could smell the scent of freshly cut grain. The Treana'ad stared at the holotanks down below as he slowly put the cigarette into his mouth and brought out the lighter.
Ge'ermo'o was slowly learning Confederate map symbols, he could see how the soldiers of V Corps were spread all over the planet, fighting the landing Precursors and their forces.
General No'Drak unfolded his lighter with a snap of his fingers, spinning the striker in the same motion and bringing up a yellow flame. He slowly lit the cigarette, staring down. He puffed on it for a moment and exhaled the smoke around his footpads as he put the lighter away.
"The Precursors have adjusted their tactics," he said softly. "Never count on the enemy staying stupid."
"How many of the next wave do you think will reach the planet?" Ge'ermo'o asked. In his opinion, the planet was lost and there was nothing anyone could do about it. But if the lemurs were willing to fight, he would stand right here next to them.
He'd come to like them.
"Just a little over a third. Sixty or so units," No'Drak said. He brought up the map. "We got lucky they didn't catch us out of position. We knew there were still Googly-Eyes in the Oort Cloud, which meant either they were going to come back in again or we'd missed something."
"Harvester-Twenty-Nine is breaking up," Someone called out from the floor below. "Harvester Thirty-Eight has dropped out of formation, looks like someone got a piece of his engines."
No'Drak nodded.
The icons for the lighter units, the Dreadnoughts and below, were burning brightly. Space Force was concentrating most of their firepower on the massive Harvester Class units that had been forced to drop out further from the gravity well of the stellar mass burning brightly at the center of the system.
The Treana'ad officer knew that every kill counted with the big Harvesters. They'd sit out there and keep producing lesser units until the sun burned out if given the chance.
He had ordered the BOLO units to switched targets, ordering them to engage the incoming planetary assault units, leaving the already planet-side units to the ground forces.
It was a calculated risk, and General No'Drak was an excellent mathematician.
General Moffeta's units were hitting the Precursors as soon as they made atmosphere, pushing through the leading wave of fire to attack the Precursors during the short time their battlescreens were down. The interference from entering the atmosphere was scrambling the Precursor's sensors, putting their point defense offline. That let General Moffeta's units take long strafing runs at the massive machines.
No'Drak winced when one of the incoming Jotuns broke up at 15,000 meters up, the huge chunks tumbling to the ground.
The planet was taking a pounding.
General No'Drak made a motion, bringing up the communications section. The PFC who answered was a Terran had oversized eyes and whiskers.
"Is the hypercom still functional?" he asked before she could speak.
"Yes, sir," she said.
"Contact the Telkan system. Tell them we're going to need a full elven court here," No'Drak said. He sighed. "Tell them we're going to have massive Precursor wreckage as well as..." he paused, took a deep drag and exhaled it.
Ge'ermo'o noticed that it was pushing back the smell of freshly cut grain.
"We're going atom smasher. We've got over two billion civilians in shelters. Put out a request for evac ships, even on the junker channels," he said.
"Yes, sir," the female Terran said. Ge'ermo'o wondered why her eyes were so big. If they helped with her job, if her parents had possessed big eyes in their DNA, or if she just had liked them.
No'Drak cut the link and looked at the surrounding officers. "I'd give my mandibles to have Tik-Tak here."
That got chuckles.
No'Drak knew that the elven queens could repair the damage he was about to order his troops to commit to.
But if his men couldn't get it under control, couldn't smash the Precursor threat, there wouldn't be a planet to fix. He could see that the Precursors had arrived to strip mine the planet, probably down to gravel.
Part of him wondered why they wanted the planet so bad. The asteroid belts had been mined to nothing over the last twenty thousand years. Most of the easily accessible minerals were gone.
Then he remembered that elements of Third Armor were engaged with mining machines.
He looked at the icons for the Treana'ad Infantry Hordes and Air Mobile Clouds and a small part of him wished he was a Lieutenant again, charging across the ground in armor with his heavy weapons on the top of his abdomen.
After a moment he made a decision.
"Order all personnel on planet into armor and to draw weapons from the armory," he said. He turned to the two Lanaktallan. "Gentlebeings, I'd advise you to prepare yourselves."
"You think we will be attacked here?" Ge'ermo'o asked.
"Can't discount it at this time," No'Drak said. "The reinforcements were a high probability and it looks like our cards weren't as good as we hoped."
"Surely you won't be defeated," Ge'ermo'o said. "You won't withdraw!"
No'Drak shook his head. "No. There's too many people in shelters, too many people in hiding. We'll fight to the last."
"The Confederacy doesn't leave civilians behind to die," General Pulgrak said. He stretched, his shoulders popping. "Glad I qualified on my armor and weapons two months ago."
General Vandu licked her lips, looking around, her eyes moving back and forth. "Are we staying here?"
General No'Drak put away his cigarette. "Yes. We will still coordinate the battle, but we must be ready to join the ever put upon lower enlisted and junior officers should the Precursors assault our command and control area."
General Vandu nodded, her lips twitching in a smile. "Just standard body armor, or can we..." she started to ask.
"Put on power armor?" No'Drak asked. He gave the equivalent of a shrug. "There are several companies of power armor troops here to defend this base, you know that. If you wish to lead them from the front, you have my blessing."
General Vandu hurried off.
"She will see if the taste of combat is as sweet as the fantasy of combat awards," No'Drak said softly. He turned to his aide. "Let's suit up."
The Colonel nodded. "This way to the armory, General."
A Terran captain next to Ge'ermo'o touched his lower right elbow. When Ge'ermo'o looked at him, he noted how grave the Terran looked.
"If you Lanaktallan gentlemen will follow me, we should have time to fab and fit you with armor."
Ge'ermo'o was proud of himself for how calm he knew he looked as he nodded.
----------------
Trucker dropped down into his tank, slamming the hatch shut over him.
He'd waited till almost the last second. The tank shuddered as the lead of the debris wave hit his tank. The wave was thick dust, formerly ferrocrete and asphalt, all ripped up by the massive Precursor combat machine going nose first into the suburbs beyond the city and scraping the bedrock for nearly eight miles before it had lost momentum and slammed down into the channel it had carved.
"Can't see shit, sir," his driver said.
"Tell all units to hold position, give the air a minute to clear," Trucker ordered. He heard his radioman passing the orders and looked at his sensor tech. "How many?"
"I saw four entering atmosphere before that big monster hit," he said. "Maybe more. The sky's on fire."
"331, how's it look in there?" Trucker asked.
--rough shape-- the Mantid Engineer Team Leader admitted. --try not to let them hit you--
"We're a tank. We're a little obvious," Trucker chuckled. He tapped his software and tossed a meme at the Mantid team of his tank, with great big googly eyes, trying to hide behind a tree, with meters of hull and an eye on each side of the tree. The caption "I R HIDYN!" at the bottom.
That got back giggling emojis.
"All Regimental Commanders, check in," Trucker said. He scooped out his dip and slung it into the can. He repacked it while he waited for his commo tech to get in touch with the different regiments.
"Trucker wants a sit-rep," Colonel Dremsal heard faintly over the roar of his quad-barrel.
"TELL HIM I'M BUSY!" Dremsal yelled back. As soon as they'd moved in between the two massive Precursors their air support had come out to play.
The sky above him was a whirling gnashing death snarl, with 19th Air Cavalry Regiment fighting six times their numbers with seemingly infinite reinforcements. So far they'd only lost three strikers, but each casualty counted.
"Told him you were still alive and we've still got tanks even if we're rolling coal," his commo tech said. He put his hand to his ear. "Most High A'armo'o wants to talk to you."
"Put him through," Dremsal said. He let go of the quad-barrel and ducked back into the tank, pulling the hatch shut. The last thing he wanted is some Precursor machine getting past the battlescreens, reaching down into the tank, and snatching his head off.
"Dremsal here, go ahead," he said.
"We're coming up on your rear. We've got 15th Sustainment inside our ranks. We had to drop back from the river, large machines were making landfall," A'armo'o said.
Dremsal closed his eyes, bringing up how his vehicles were arranged. He gave the orders and shot A'armo'o his plan.
"You keep 15th covered, we'll drop back to get refit," Dremsal said.
"What, may I ask, is our target?" A'armo'o asked. He glanced back at the half dozen Telkan Marines on the back deck of his tank. A quick glance showed his second in command had several Terrans on the back and it looked like they were doing something important.
"Juggernaut. It looks like it almost broke up, but if they get the auto-factories running we'll be in a lot of trouble if we let it just sit there without busting up its plans," Dremsal said. "We'll knock out the supply lines, get close, and open fire on it."
"What about the Great Gobbler back there?" A'armo'o asked.
"He can watch from behind us. He won't be able to catch up to us," Dremsal said. "We'll keep ahead of it close enough to keep its attention, keep it from diving, but we won't let it get close."
"I understand. Your warplan is loaded, my men are moving up," A'armo'o said.
The tanks of the Great Herd slowed for a moment as the Terran tanks widened the wedge they were in, giving room for A'armo'o to bring his brigade up tight to the formation and slot into the middle. Once the manuever was finished, the Lanaktallan tanks formed another layer of protection for the lightly armored and lightly shielded (for Terran vehicles) vehicles of 15th Sustainment.
A'armo'o looked through his laser designator ranger at the big vehicle behind him that his men were still 'teasing' with random shots. He frowned and dialed up the magnification.
Was that... people on top of it?
-------------------
Vuxten stared down at the grinders below him, kneeling down on the ten foot thick protective housing right above them. He stared right into a massive glowing eye that looked back.
"Howdy, sailor," he heard a female's voice over the radio. "Buy a girl a drink?"
Vuxten chuckled. "We thought you were dead," he said honestly.
"I'm stuck. I came up from under me, I got caught on the cables and conveyors, then sucked into the grinder," Glory said. She wiggled her fingers. "I'm OK, probably scuffed up real bad, but I'm definitely stuck."
The gears tried to reverse, jammed, then tried to pull the massive skull and shoulder in.
"My feet and shins are outside the grinders, but they're hung up on my hips and shoulder," Glory said.
"Gonna have some greenies check it out, see if we can help you out," Vuxten said.
--hopefully no fall whirr blarg dead-- 471 said.
"Can you move your arms?" Plunex asked.
Glory shifted slightly and the grinders howled, showering sparks everywhere. "Nope. My arms are at bad positions, I've got no leverage."
"Lemme look," Casey said. He grabbed onto the edge of the housing and swung down.
"Wait..." Plunex said.
Casey dropped down, landing agilely on Glory's face.
"Aw man, first date and you try to do me right in the face?" Glory laughed.
"Don't kinkshame me," Casey said, moving slowly and carefully. Vuxten could see his feet had the bluish purple of active graviton generators around them.
"Really? Graviton? Wow," Glory said. "Do you have any idea what it feels like to have you walk on my face with grav-stickied boots?"
"Don't kinkshame me," Casey said again, his voice slightly distant.
"Kinkshaming is my kink," Glory laughed. The grinders whined, clattered, and bucked. "Ow, it's starting to pinch."
"Enough leverage and pressure and they'll bend the warsteel," Casey knelt down, looking at the gears.
"What do you see, Sergeant?" Sergeant Addox asked.
"Drive shaft is exposed on two of them. Look about three to four meters of endosteel," he said.
"What..." Plunex started.
"Shh," Vuxten said, watching the Terran. "Listen and learn."
"Looks like she shattered one of the grinders and when it tried to bring up a new one it hung up on her shoulder armor," Casey said.
To Vuxten it just looked like a whirring nightmare of massive toothed screws. He started tracing the lines, looking at them. A small window in the upper right of his vision showed 471 was zooming in on sections.
--stress points here here here here-- 471 said, tossing the red dots. --bearing housing covers here here here here--
"Casey, my greenie's ID'd a bunch of stress points and stuff," Vuxten said.
"Pass it to me," Casey said.
"What if it sucks you inside?" Vuxten asked Glory.
"My arm's at a bad angle. It might rip it off," she answered. "Beyond that, I'll probably be inside a massive area where ore and rock are pulverized and I'd like to avoid that."
Vuxten remembered the First Telkan War. "How's your coolant?"
"Good. All my lobes are intact," she answered.
"All right. We can get her out," Casey said. He jumped up and grabbed the lip of the top of the housing and pulled himself up with the hiss of loading frame hydraulics. Vuxten noticed his eyes weren't amber any longer. "I'll mark the areas, in order. Those armor defeating missiles you Telkan's use should do the trick."
"Sergeant Canton, I need ten men," Plunex sent out. "All with rocket launchers."
"Roger that, sir," the section sergeant radioed back.
"We're going to free your right arm first. Once we do that, I want you to pull it out, brace yourself, and we're going to blow the driveshaft on the one on your left shoulder, then the one pressing against your chest," Casey said.
"With missiles?" Glory asked.
"Your warsteel hull could take a direct hit from them. They're forged up for Precursor armor," Vuxten said.
"Units on top of Precursor mega-structure mining vessel, fire green star cluster flare if friendly," came a voice across the command channel. It was staticy and full of pops and clicks.
"I read you," Vuxten said. He ordered the round in his grenade launcher to reconfigure to the right munition, aimed it straight up, and chugged out three, slightly spread apart.
"We validate three green star clusters. Mark with single red," the voice said. "No voice commo, IU say again, we are not receiving you."
Vuxten fired a single red flare into the sky. "This is first platoon, HHC, First Telkan Marine Division," he said.
"We read one single red flare. Signal with red white red star cluster flares. I say again, red, white, red star clusters, when in need of assistance," the voice continued. "One green flare if under operation."
Vuxten fired another green.
"We read green. Will designate spotter to overwatch. Pop orange smoke or two green star cluster if in need of assistance at later time," the voice said. "Dremsal out."
"Telkan out," Vuxten said.
Dremsal looked back at the massive vehicle. He could see the Telkan Marines plainly, and they were involved with something on the massive vehicle's port side, but the huge scoop wheels blocked whatever it was they were looking at.
"Can we even hurt that thing?" He asked. "Without killing them?"
His gunner shook his head. "Negative, sir. That thing's shields could match a BOLO."
Dremsal frowned.
Where the hell had it come from?
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Original Author
​
Important official legal disclaimer: This is a short work of fiction. Any resemblances to real people (including myself); people you may know; people you think you may know; etc.; is entirely deliberate.
When I’m at work I’m staring at a screen. When I’m not at work I’m staring at screens. Checking social media. Scrolling through updates. Scrolling through friends. Scrolling through #instagram. Scrolling through #amazon. The customer is always right. Make sure the product you’re selling is something that people want to buy.
On the subway we’re surrounded by people that we don’t know and never will. Our heads are tilted down, eyes connected to smartphones and pod devices. Playing free games. Bright lights and colorful shapes. Swipe swipe swipe. Group texts. #netflix. Fantasy football updates. #snapchats. The anxiety of being human. New Yorkers avoid looking at or talking to one another. Once in a while there will be a crazy person on the train and all of us normal passengers can smile at each other and sigh. At least we’re not crazy.
The subway tunnels are the arteries and veins of the city, the passageways of the busy hive. If you close your eyes the movement through the tunnels feels organic, alive. A buzz of worker bees on our way. Where are we going?
I don’t want be a part of the hive. But I’m a human being. I need other human beings.
Something is broken in me. I hate myself. I don’t feel connection in any aspect of my life. friendships, family, romance, work. Ennui and alienation are my reality. A city of 8 million people. A hive of loneliness.
My life is no tragedy. I don’t have any real reasons to be sad but I’m sad. I wasn’t abused. My parents love me. I went to college. I had all the benefits of a middle class upbringing. I’m a white male in a society that has persecuted anyone and everyone who isn’t.
I eat mostly fast food. Chinese delivery. #mcdonalds. #kraft macaroni & cheese. #dominos. Microwave dinners. High sodium. High Fructose Corn Syrup. MSG. Intense flavors. Addictive flavors.
There was a terrorist attack and the nation was in shock. A maniac with a gun shot up a shopping mall. The president offered his condolences. We had an all-staff call at work to discuss how we felt. It’s important for us to remember that terrorists are evil. When terrible things happen on our TV screens it’s important to show solidarity.
We’ve never had an all-staff call at work to discuss our solidarity with the homeless people that we walk by each day between the subway station and our office. The woman who stands by the subway entrance shaking her cup of change every day. The couple that sleep in sleeping bags each night under the awning of the bodega. We didn’t have an all-staff call to discuss our solidarity with our co-workers who were laid off last week.
Binge. Binge-watch. Binge-watch television. The revolution will be televised. The revolution will be tweeted.

ThisIsUs#Freshofftheboat#Blackish#Blacklivesmatter#Change#Makeamericagreatagain#Strongertogether#Target

Browsing the internet, searching for a date. Swiping through thousands of profiles. The deep human need for connection. "Love to travel". "Looking for a partner in crime". “Enjoys witty banter”. Attempting to send thoughtful messages that will stand out. Being ignored. Rejected. Every once in a while a rare response. Variable rewards. You’ll never win if you don’t play the game. Dopamine. Slot machines. Addiction.
Sometimes I wonder if people have genuine friendships anymore. Sometimes I think back to the times when I had friends. My friends from college. I think I was always a little bit sad underneath it all. But friends are a good medicine.
We had a lot of fun back in college. This was back before our jobs dragged us to all different corners of the country. Nowadays we talk about the #nfl or #GoT through group texts. Sometimes we wish each other happy birthday. Usually we forget.
Breaking news. Check your smart phone. Turn on your television. President Trump did this. President Trump did that. Terrorist attack. Hurricane. Polar Ice Caps melting. Destruction. Human beings are terrible to each other. Stay informed. Stay alert. Informed citizens watch the news. Check #bbc, #cnn, #msnbc. Get updates and notifications. Twitter and social media keep us informed. Smart phones are smart.
Drugs make me feel better. Temporarily. Porn works too. Weed. A little coke. A little molly. Drugs and porn don't really make me happy, but they at least make me not sad for a while. A quick bump to take the pain away.
Everyone is an addict. Addiction is good for the economy. Some addictions are respectable. Some not so much. work, shopping, smart phones, #facebook, television, fossil fuels, #marvel super-hero movies, #mcdonalds, #instagram, pornography, #dominos, coffee, alcohol, #snapchat, cocaine, #oxycontin, heroin. The economy is doing well.
I talked to my sister a few weeks ago, she lives in Colorado. She used to live in Arizona, and before that North Carolina. I miss my sister. Like most young people she goes wherever her or her boyfriend can find work. She complained about her job, about how all her coworkers seem so fake. No one really seems to care about what they’re doing. It’s more important to make it seem like you care than it is to actually care.
The other day I saw a picture she posted with her co-workers - “So happy to work with these great people and this awesome company #workfriends”.
The global economy is great. Even as it rips apart the connections that we need for our emotional health, it comes up with ever more products and services and gadgets for us to substitute for those connections and soothe our loneliness. One day we will all be starting at screens all the time and we’ll never have to interact with humans in the real world ever again. Life will be good.
I know some people who find meaning in their work. They work long hours. They go out drinking with co-workers. Mostly they work in advertising or tech or finance. These industries are important because they help our economy grow. Growing the economy is important. We may live on a finite planet, but we’re committed to an economy that can grow forever.
An economy is not the only type of organic system that can commit to a cycle of endless growth. Sometimes it happens with cells in the human body for instance. This is called cancer.
Most of my time at work I sit at my desk pretending to work hard. Wondering what the other cubicle bees are doing with their time as they pretend to be working hard. Sometimes I do spread sheets that people tell me are useful. Measuring. Counting.
Once in a while I’ll grab lunch at the bodega or at #mcdonalds and I’ll notice how the employees there work so much harder than I do. Most of them are bi-lingual. They probably work harder in an hour than I do in a day.
I sit at a desk in front of a computer, so my job is really important.
Smart phone. Smart TV. Smart car. Smart house. We are smart.
When I get out of work I walk to the subway with all the other worker bees leaving their jobs. The sidewalks are buzzing with people heading this way and that. It’s important to walk fast to wherever it is you’re going. It’s important to go where you’re going and for everyone else to go where they’re going. Thinking about where you’re going is time wasted when you could be getting to where you’re going. Be careful if you smile at other people, they may see it as a threat.
At rush hour there is always a man on the corner near the subway with a sign that says “Jesus Loves You.” His eyes are intense. He doesn’t seem to be in a rush to get anywhere.
I love to learn. I love to read. I mostly hated school. Some of the most intelligent, interesting, and creative people I knew were dropouts.
School was useful for teaching us that life is about measurement and performance and specialization and commodification. Your peers are your competition. Things like empathy and imagination and cooperation are hard to measure. They’re non-linear. School doesn’t like them.
Prison population is something we can measure. There are more black men in prison today than there were enslaved at the time the Civil War began. There are 2.3 million Americans in Prison. America is the home of the Free and the Brave.
There was a pretty young woman at the register at the bookstore. She told me that she was a huge fan of the Nabokov stories I was buying. Said she loved the way he plays with language and meaning. She reached to give me a bag for the book and I told her I didn't really need one. She apologized and smiled and said that she must have asked me about a bag already. I told her that she hadn't. She blushed. I asked her her name. I asked her for her number.
Later I sent her a message. Maybe I could take her out for a drink sometime. Smiley face emoji. I never got a response. Connecting with people is hard.
Social media. Social. Media. We are social. We connect with our screens. Social media connects us to what is important. Likes, upvotes, retweets, friend requests, updates, notifications. That friendly buzzzzzz from your smart phone. It feels good to be social. Dopamine. Remember - Your brand matters. Everyone is watching.
Technology makes the world better. Technology solves problems, especially problems created by other technology. If new technologies create problems, the solution is to develop newer technologies to solve those problems. Technology and progress are the same thing. Technology helps the economy grow. When technology makes human beings obsolete, that is progress.
Sometimes it seems that we relate to our machines better than we relate to each other.
One in sixty-eight children in America is diagnosed with autism. Autism is characterized by impaired social interaction, impaired verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior.
I feel like my job isn’t actually about doing anything. Success is really about making it look like what you do is important. Lying to yourself to tell yourself that what you do is important.
Teamwork and cooperation are actively discouraged at work. No one knows what anyone else does, but supposedly what everyone does is important. Stare into your computer screen. Do we live in a world where success is about manipulating our fellow human beings? #winning
One day after work I saw an old woman on the subway with a young girl sleeping at her side. The woman was sewing a scarf. Sometimes people are good to each other. Sometimes the small things in life can be incredibly beautiful. Once in a while happiness will come when I’m not searching for it.
I wish I had a girlfriend. Someone I could talk to without feeling like I’m lying to myself.
People around me are growing up. Getting married. Having kids. Settling into life. My conscience is at war with my culture.
One day I took a train out of the city. I took some molly. I was hoping to escape the traps of language. I needed nature. I needed art. I was looking for something that wasn’t for sale.
Our culture destroys connection. Alienation is endemic to the system. Nobody knows anybody, nobody knows themselves. We blame and ridicule anyone who reflects the fear that is hidden within ourselves. Those who are suffering the most – the poor, the homeless, the drug addicts, the crazy, the uneducated. Anyone with a political ideology different from our own. Organic human interaction doesn’t exist, all that matters is your ability to sell and your ability to consume. Smile for #instagram, smile for #facebook. Image is everything. Human beings are commodities. We stare into screens, selling ourselves to each other. We desperately hang on for a sense of meaning and purpose to a culture which is destroying the ecosystems that we depend on for life. A culture which transforms our deep emotional need for meaning and connection into a deep emotional need for products.
In 2015 there were 33,000 deaths in America from heroin and prescription opioids. These drugs are pain killers. Pain. Killers. What pain are we trying to kill?
Some of the best people I know are chronic drug users, some of them functional, some of them not so much. What does it mean to be a human being?
Once I got so lonely that I was no longer myself. I was the hive. The people moving to and fro, the traffic, the ambulances, the delivery boys on their bicycles, the junkies, the couples hand in hand on the sidewalks, the children and dogs playing in the park, the street festivals, the subway cars rumbling through their tunnels. It was all me.
The sounds of the city are music. Everything is frequency. It’s buzzing.
Rather than acknowledging and sharing our pain and fear, using vulnerability to connect, we project onto each other. We revert to tribalism. Tribalism and hatred increase when our communities are our screens. Morality and empathy function differently in this environment. There is only the tribe and the Other. The safe space and the enemy. Stronger Together. I’m With Her. Make America Great Again. #BackLivesMatter #BlueLivesMatter Advertising is our culture. #hastag your tribe.
I miss my sister. I miss my whole family. Including my extended family that I don’t really know. Sometimes I think that humans aren’t really supposed to behave like bees in a hive and that we are actually designed to live close to our families and our friends and work close to where we live. Maybe work and life and culture and happiness aren’t supposed to be separate things. “Commute” is a silly word. There’s a hope somewhere deep down that we actually need each other…that people are worth it.
As a straight, college educated, white male, I sometimes feel that I’m not allowed to be upset about the world we live in, I’m not allowed to be hurt by it. I need to #checkmyprivilege. Maybe I just need more drugs.
It’s important for us to be living in a state of constant consumption. After all, what are we if we’re not consumers? What does it mean to be a human being?
Sex sells. Sex is a good product. Orgasms can be counted. How many people have you fucked? I don’t know how to have a genuinely vulnerable emotional connection with another human being. What happens after the orgasm? Connecting with someone who you hope to have an intimate and beautiful relationship with is about selling yourself. Always remember: You Are A PRODUCT.
Make sure you have a great profile pic. It’s important to start out with a clever user name. Never start with your real name. This is advertising, people don’t want to know the real you. Make sure you look sexy at all times. Ugliness doesn’t sell. Swipe your way to happiness. True love is a click away. Everyone’s there. An entire city. A busy hive.
Drugs are Good drugs when society says they’re Good drugs. Good drugs are legal, Bad drugs are illegal.
Good people Hate president Trump. It’s important to have socially acceptable outlets for channeling negative emotions when living in an oppressive culture. Ridiculing and making fun of Trump and his supporters is something we can all do together and share in the fun.
Is it possible that Trump supporters might be human beings too? Is it possible that hatred is just fear and pain turned outward?
How’s your social media presence? What does it mean to have “presence”? where am I when I have #presence? Presence; noun; The state or fact of being present; current existence or occurrence.
Science and technology allow us to track and influence the behavior of massive numbers of human beings. The entire hive. How does the swarm function?
Humans can be tracked by consumption habits and behavior predicted and influenced using algorithms. The more data there is the more accurate the predictions. Eventually feedback loops from past behavior can be used to influence future behavior. What we consume tells us who we are and who we will be. #hashtag it. Humans are just numbers after all. Numbers that can be measured, counted, commodified.
Tech and big data are amazing. It’s really great they way the tech industry helps our economy. Why judge people by the content of their character when there are statistics and algorithms? More products to help the economy grow. What does it mean to be a human being?
After the Civil War, the former slaves were free to make their way in this home of the Free and the Brave. In Florida and other parts of the south, during the reconstruction period, it was common for freed slaves to be thrown in jail for no other reason than the fact that they didn’t have work. Once there, they were forced into chain gangs to build railroads and other infrastructure projects. Many of them died due to terrible conditions and over-work. Railroads were important because they brought industry and technology and economic growth. Economic progress makes the world better.
Every once in a while the screens get turned off. I get the rare chance to talk with friends or co-workers away from the screens and outside of the office environment and I have the impression that they are genuinely interested in having a positive impact in the world and in their community. Why do I feel so alienated at work, and in life? Why are we so disconnected in a world of constant connection? It has something to do with the system, the wider culture. Culture is powerful.
Worker bees working, the rhythms of the hive.
A beautiful fall day in Central Park. An oasis amidst the concrete. The wind blows through the trees, leaves shimmering in the sun. Fractals. The individual elements reflect structural patterns of the whole.
A beehive is an amazing thing. We can’t understand the hive by looking at the behavior of an individual bee, yet the combined behavior of the bees create a new phenomenon that is more than the sum of its parts – the hive. Swarming is like a cultural phenomenon of the hive. It is a pattern of the hive reflected in the bees.
The heroin addict reflects our culture of addiction. The cancer patient reflects our pathological attachment to endless growth. The autistic child reflects a society in which we have lost the ability to empathize, lost the ability to feel. We relate more to machines than to each other and to the earth. A black man murdered in the street reflects a culture in which human life is a just a number. Humans are products. A salesman for president is a reflection of us. It shows us who we are.
The art of the deal. President. Salesman. Don’t forget that you’re for sale. Everyone’s watching.
I don’t have a single person that I feel I can talk to about things that matter to me. I don’t have a single relationship where I feel I can be comfortable being myself, where I feel understood. Attempts that I make to connect are met with rejection. I fail over and over and over again. The relationships I do have are superficial. Why am I so broken? Sometimes I think that I might have something positive to offer.
The personalities that thrive in the modern world are those that embody the traits of psychopathy. Rapid turnover in interpersonal relationships. Lack of any real need for a sense of community or place. Focus on the superficial and image based forms of communication as opposed to depth and nuance. Lack of empathy. Commoditized, fragmented, specialized and depersonalized interactions with others and with the planet. We are all engulfed in this culture. There aren’t any good guys or bad guys. Causality is non-linear. We’re all guilty. We are a society in which the ability to consume is our highest virtue and being poor is a moral failure. Poor people hate themselves and each other for being poor and worship rich people for being rich. Rich people hate themselves just as much as poor people, if not more so. Can you ever consume enough to create an identity? What does it mean to be a human being? Technology, screens and financial capital. Fossil fuels. Endless War. Drone Strikes. 150 to 200 of the species that make up the biosphere of planet earth go extinct every single day. 2,220,300 people incarcerated in the United States of America. Home of the Free and the Brave.
Does the bee comprehend the nature of the hive? There are 7.442 billion human beings on planet earth. The individual human brain does not work with those kinds of numbers. We can’t relate to 7,442,000,000. 7,442,000,000 are not faces that we know. 7,442,000,000 is not connected to place. The way we make sense of 7,442,000,000…is as a product. A product to be exploited and used for all that it’s worth and then discarded a long with the rest of the natural world. Success in our culture, in the industrial juggernaut that we call our economy, comes from the ability to manipulate the largest number of human beings, from figuring out and implementing the most efficient ways of turning human beings and the planet into a #commodity.

hashtag#hastag#hashtag#meme#meme#meme#imageiseverything#cultureisadvertisement#artisproduct#loveisproduct

Shorten your thoughts so your mind doesn’t wander
into the darkness beyond tomorrow.

iamreallyhappy

productsmakemhappy

Buckle in for a wall of text.
Also this is based on my time, things may have changed.
Note to those entering frontline vocation.
Watch out for your mental health. You may develop PSTD after your NS, it depends on the person. It is never easy watching someone die while you are trying to save them. Seek help if you need to, the people in station are those who understand what you are going through. All of us have had to come to terms with some death or near miss while in station. Watching family members break down and cry before you is a humbling experience. Enjoy your time and take care of yourself.
BRT - basic rescue training
PTP - physical training phase
FFC - Fire Fighter course
SCC - Section Commander Course (Sergeant course)
RCC - Rota commander course (OCS for those in green)
SRU – Special rescue unit
EMT - Emergency medical technician (not to be confused with paramedic)
FF - Fire Fighter
SC - Section commander
RC – Rota commander
JO - Junior officer (REC – SWO)
SO – Senior officer (LTA onwards)
NSTI- National Service Training Institute
CDA – Civil defence academy
HTTC – Home Team Training Centre
Rota – Rotation (Shift/ Platoon)
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CDA and NSTI side by side and both are located at Jalan Bahar. Your whole training life is spent in Jalan Bahar. CDA and NSTI are within the same fence but are sperate buildings. Think of NSTI has a chalet and CDA hell. Also NS punishes everyone, so prepare for unfair punishment cause of an idiot somewhere, don’t let it get to you and keep doing your best. After a while you will gain enough brownie points that your SGTs will give you more favourable treatment here and there.
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Enlistment
When you enlist you are sorted into 2 enlistment batch. PTP or BRT. PTP batch will do a 3-month course with 2 months of physical training then 1 last month of Basic Rescue Training (BRT). BRT batch enters at the 2-month mark and will do their BRT together with PTP batch and POP in 4 weeks. The general rule of thumb is that BRT mainly made up of those who passed IPPT. Basically, recruit life in SCDF is streamlined af. Life here is chill and relaxed. Your SGT and PC are all NSF, so you might get to talk shit with them after 1 or 2 months when they ease off your back.
Bring hangers, underwear, toiletries, detergent and a portable charger. Clothing is provided, get ready to strip to your underwear on the first day in bunk with your platoon to try out your no4 and admin tees (wear a underwear to enlistment, no one wants to see a naked gun on day 1). If there is sizing issues inform your PC and they will work to swap it with the correct size. Cut your hair before entering, if you cut at NSTI you will have to spend the day with itchy small hairs falling into your shirt. Camera phones are allowed, but you will be warned that you are not supposed to take photos and that provost can check your phones if needed. Most of your admin time will be spend playing on your phone, basically 7-10pm, most SGT and PC will not disturb you for playing with your phone in bunk. You will get a good morning and night view of graves, so if you are prone to those things bring some religious amulets or charms. (optional)
Smoking is not allowed. Possession of lighters and ciggs are considered an offence. People will find a way to smuggle it in, you just need to find the lobang.
Food is ok. There is a halal and non halal. The one vegetarian I know says his menu sucks and he would queue for the halal menu and take only the veg. Get ready to drink a lot of water from the taps. People get stomach issues almost on a weekly basis, but no one is able to find out why this happens, normally it happens on Saturdays. Never trust your Saturday morning farts. If you are a non-Muslim that eats halal food, bring some papers to proof that you require halal food, the cookhouse aunty and your SGT may need some convincing before they get off your back about why a Chinese needs halal food. Remember to scan your 11B and to wash your hands (don’t be an animal). Menu duration are short, 15 mins to 20mins, so more chewing and less talking.
As a BRT batch you basically book out 2 times and you POP and enter vocation training. Physical training in BRT is almost nonexistent, you come in and learn some basic rescue equipment, marching and POP. Recently there is a change where a group of people are selected at enlistment to enter directly into SCC and start vocational training as SC, I am unsure about the enlistment process for this group. BRT involves learning how to use chainsaws, jacks and some power tools. Learn and forget, you will not touch most of them after entering vocational training. You will be taught how to use the important ones again in vocational training.
There will be 4 company, made of around 4 platoons of about 40 people. Very small compared to army. Delta coy is for overweight NSF, you will know it is them. No girls in NSTI, female regulars undergo their enlistment training at CDA. REC life is spent in NSTI, enjoy your time here. Perks of SCDF is free washing machines and dryers if your company or rota don’t fuck it up. You should be able to sort out some schedule with the platoon on how to schedule the washings. I spent 1 year in training and never had to go a day with dirty clothes or hand washing clothes. As a REC just keep your head down and follow the instructions. If you want, you can try to earn some awards at NSTI. Best in rescue skills, best in theory, best in physical skills, best in company/platoon. Awards do not play a factor in your eventual vocation I think, my platoon was randomly assigned vocations based on our bunk bed arrangement. Tell your SGT and PC your preferred vocation choice but do not pin your hopes on it.
​
​
Vocation training
If you are combat fit (PES A or B) you are almost guaranteed to enter frontline vocation, EMT or FF. Other vocation includes Provost (everyone’s favourite house guest), admin boys and drivers. There may be some I miss out, but these are the main ones.
Admin boys. You either sit around playing ML for hours on end or you get placed under some high ranker and will have to work as a pseudo secretary. Everyone will shit on you for not doing work and you will be surrounded by delta boys and other non-combat fit PES people. You could be assigned to Divisions, HQ, CDA/NSTI or to stations. (If you want more details on the structure, I can put it in the comment upon request)
EMT makes up the minority of frontline vocations. You get your standard rank pay + $300 as your ops pays regardless of rank and some meal allowance. You will undergo a 1-month course at CDA to get your EMT specialist tag and be shipped off to fire stations or to NSTI MO. Prepare to shoot some IV into your veins and learn medical protocols.
Firefighting takes the remaining frontline vocations. Standard station pay for FF is your rank pay + $400 +$150 meal allowance. If your OCS friends talk about their shitty training just wipe out your extra $550 and give them one good slap. As a LCP you can earn about the same as a SAF LTA. Make some good financial choices, learn to drive or ride.
3 main courses, FFC, SCC and RCC. All these courses include a 1month basic firefighting training (BFFT). BFFT will be tough and nothing like NSTI. They will hit you hard in BFFT and you will do your first taste of bunker training. Some people faint on the first day from the heat, some never get used to the bunker gear and will OOC. My only advice is to drink up and sleep early. Don’t think about the days, just think about getting to the next meal and man mode and acclimatise to the heat.
Cup noodles and 100 plus are now a currency. If your enciks allow its, bring them and ration it out during the week. Someone will have stock of other snacks around, again find the lobang. Or become the lobang. $3 for 1 cup noodle is good profit margin.
The 1st month is BFFT and your official course is not set in stone yet. There is a total of 6 Rotas, 1-4 are FFC Rota and 5-6 are SCC Rota. During the end of BFFT they will shuffle those with leadership potential into 5 and 6 and the 2 courses will separate and follow their own schedule.
FFC – 3months course (1-month BFFT, 2 months FFC). You POP with LCP rank. Get ready to be screw all day every day. Your job as a FF is to send the body, so they are going to throw a lot of physical training in to get you ready. Prepare to be treated like shit. My time had unlimited water parade/ happy hour (drink till you puke). Understand what a green gate is and prepare to shout a lot and carry weight. When you POP the top 4 or 5 of each FFC rota will be given the opportunity to crossover into SCC senior bar term. Easiest way to achieve this is to work hard and get a good IPPT score. If you top your Rota in IPPT score you have a good chance of scoring high and being offered SCC. People here are a mixed bag, you get the full range of 20-year-old fathers to JC kids.
SCC – 5 months course. There is a junior and senior bar term. Junior bar is quite similar to FFC and you will be doing more physical training. After 2 months you will enter your senior bar or professional term. At this point the FFC crossover will enter SCC. During your final term you will have lessons on more specialized topics or Urban Search and Rescue, Hazmat and Marine firefighting. A lot of theory so be prepared to study during admin hours for term test. You will have scenario drills and final exercise where you will be assessed by the enciks from station. 4 awards to be won are overall best trainee, best in practical, best in theory and best in physical training. Awards don’t affect anything but getting an award mean you would be in the top 10% of your SCC and will be given the chance to crossover to RCC. People here are a bit more motivated to get into a frontline vocation, quite refreshing from the typical NS attitude.
RCC – 7 months course. The course people are made up of international trainees and NSF from SCDF and SAF. Around 20 of them will be those who don’t make the cut for OCS and will be moved to SCDF after their 3-month BMT in SAF. A lot of salty egos in this group, a good number of them bring along the SAF NSF mindset of just doing the bear minimum. Around 5 will be international trainees, prepare to work around their language barrier but they generally know what they are doing. Some of them may have years of experience in service back in their country. And around 10 regulars.
First 2-3 months is similar to FFC. If you are a crossover from SCC you will enter at the 3month mark. You would have spent around 1 to 4 months in your previous vocation which could be a station. The experience helps a lot and the regulars in RCC may look to you for help and guidance. Be prepared to carry some parts of the course. The content is similar to SCC except the hazmat section is beefed up and you will obtain a hazmat specialist tag on POP. Super boring relearning everything but there will be more scenario drills.
POTENTIALLY you could POP 4 times, BRT, FFC, SCC, RCC. It has happened before, so work hard in CDA if you want to move up the ranks.
For all 3 courses you will have to do your BAPT, IPPT and H&H to POP. If you move from FFC to RCC it means you have to do all of them at least 3 times. It sucks.
BAPT – Breathing apparatus test. You have 4 physical exercise stations and a maze. The maze is super easy. 3 of the exercises are easy to pass, the main killer is the endless ladder. You must pass all 4 stations and exit the maze to pass all while controlling your breathing and making sure you do not consume too much air. Learn to be hyper conscious of your breathing rates and practise skip breathing.
H&H – heat and humidity. They will hit you with a physical exercise designed to stress you out and make you sweat. Afterwards you enter a sauna and do more exercise, the heat will get to your head but try to keep calm and endure the steam and heat. It also gives a good experience of what actual firefighting is like. People have peed their pants and fought each other to get out of the sauna.
Bonus point is that during the hazmat weeks you will be gassed in a gas chamber.
Also for RCC and SCC you will obtain a Fire Safety Manager Diploma and WSQ certs. Keep them, they can be used to find work outside.
​
Posting
Learn what you can in CDA and prepare to learn more in station. Every Station and rota has their own culture and how to run calls. CDA will never be able to teach you everything so be humble when you enter station.
For EMT you will enter station or NSTI MO. Rank progression is slower than fire side. Work is tough, hours are bad. Get ready to see everything about a human body. You work 12 hours shifts at station along side your paramedic and a driver. Just take cue from the paramedic on what to do.
For fire side
After POP you either enter land station, SRU or marine.
There is a separate specialist course all marine FF have to do and you will be assigned to fight fire from and on ships.
SRU is an interesting place, used to be a rabz place but things have gotten better. Take care of yourself if you enter SRU, ragging may still be happening there.
You work 24 hours and get 48 hours to rest. You maybe be arrowed random events that may eat your first day off. Culture is different for every station and every rota.
After you POP from FFC you enter your posting as a FF. Congrats you are now the rank and file of your posting, prepare to do all the shitty work until you get your new juniors 3 months later. Enciks will target you with a lot of questions and task until they see that you can be trusted to know what to do on a fire ground. AKA boy period of 3 months. Learn fast and be smart. You get to ride the red rhino, fire engines and take all the aku bomba (fire emoji) selfies you want. Promotion every 3 or 6months. You should be able to move from LCP to SGT before your ORD.
For SCC you will enter as a SC, you can enter the above-mentioned frontline vocations or remain in CDA and NSTI as instructors. Instructor will take a 50% cut to their $400 ops pay. As a SC you now have more responsibility and will have to actively make calls and decision on incidents. Some of it may involve human lives or property so be prepared for it. You could ask your encik for guidance but some situations you have to make the calls.
For RCC there is very limited slots to enter back into frontline. Every course there is only about 10 station that would take in a NSF LTA, so you will have to compete with the other NSF in your course for it. Luckily most of the SAF boys will want to go staff posting, so try your luck. As a RC in station prepare to work and work. You are now a regular with NSF pay, your name will appear on official documents and you will be in charge of fire investigations and putting up fire reports for people to make insurance claims. You are directly in charge of around 40 people and making sure they go home to their families. There is a lot of things to learn and a lot of staff work to do on top of your frontline operations. Do have to do audits for companies and be prepared to become a working professional and deal with important people from external companies. Your work is more akin to working 48 hours and resting 24 hours.

[first] [prev] [last appearance] [next]
The tank clattered down the road, treads ripping up the plascrete, the bow pushing wrecked and burnt cars out of the way, the barrel rock steady even as the great metal beast rocked as it crossed craters. A green mantid had the communications array panel open, half inside, checking the molycirc to try to find a way past the jamming the filled the air with an invisible smothering blanket. The coax on the turret, next to the main gun, moved slightly as the driver looked around, the heavy gun trying to stay lined up with the pilot's vision. The cupola gun was cocked up into the air, on automatic point defense mode, the commander half out of the hatch. The loader and communications specialist's guns were on point defense, the system whining softly as the two heavy machineguns tracked the sky. The armor was pitted and scorched in places, but no blowthroughs or even deep penetrations.
Behind it walked four power armor troops, all with the markings of the Second Telkan Marine Division. One was pristine, unmarred, two were dinged and scuffed, and the last one was not only cracked, scarred, gouged, and cratered, but was also missing the left arm a few inches below the shoulder. Two robots followed, one limping with a damaged leg, the other beeping out a merry tune as it rolled behind the Telkan Marines. Both were scorched, scored, and had pitted armor.
"How you holding up, Ralvex?" one of the Telkan Marines asked the one without an arm.
"Fine," Ralvex said, chewing on a piece of gum.
"They'll get in contact with command and we'll get you to a field hospital, get that arm taken care of," another said.
The one with an unmarred suit shrugged. "I don't know. There's something weird going on."
"OK, so I'm not crazy. Something beyond normal SNAFU is slapping our cheeks," the first one said. Ralvex couldn't be sure who it was, his helmet had taken a couple hard hits during the last fight and his IFF could ping friendly but couldn't get the additional ID data.
"You all right back there?" a Terran voice broke in. "You can mount the tank if you want."
"Any word on other tanks?" Ralvex asked.
"No. Communications beyond direct line of sight with whisker lasers is spotty at best and even the whiskers are getting jammed to hell and back by micro-prism," the Terran said. "We were thinking it was us, but 883 is pretty sure it's more than that."
Ralvex jumped up on the back of the tank, sitting down and leaning against the mortar tube cover, which was rolled back to let the little 60mm indirect fire weapons breathe.
"You OK, champ? Arm hurting?" the Terran tank commander asked, turning to look at Ralvex.
"My wrist itches. Unfortunately my wrist is about sixty miles behind us," Ralvex said.
The machineguns suddenly oriented, all facing west, and Ralvex rolled off the tank, landing on his feet on the road. The four Telkan Marines moved to the east side of the tank, hunkering down, bringing out their rifles as the barrel slowly rotated to the west.
"CONTACTS INCOMING! FIVE, SIX, AIRMOBILE!" the gunner called out over the channel.
Ralvex hefted his mag-pistol. His green mantid buddy, 525, exited the clamshell between Ralvex's shoulders and climbed up on one pauldron, holding a micro-missile launcher.
The four craft were blocky, like aircraft made of blocks, the top center of the fuselage covered in thick cables and tubes, with four crysteel globes that two or three glowed blue on each of them. Their thrusters sputtered but still put out enough thrust to keep the craft in the air and moving forward at a fast clip.
The main gun of the tank roared, the grass on that side of the highway flattening in a cone shape. The lead aircraft exploded as the main gun round of a heavy tank hit it dead center with a round usually reserved for the larger heavily armored ground units.
The machineguns opened up, the front of the other three aircraft growing deadly orange and yellow blossoms of explosions. Ralvex squinted, watching as the ammunition hammered apart the battle-screens on the ships before chewing the ships apart. The main gun fired again, the tank rocking slightly to the side on its stabilizers even as it kept moving forward. The automatic systems followed the larger pieces of wreckage until the hit the ground, pounding them with more ammunition.
"Compliments, 770, for getting the tracking software's accuracy back. Looks like 97% hits," the tank commander said.
The green mantid, hidden somewhere in the tank's maintenance spaces, flashed a gratified icon back.
Ralvex scratched the lumps and rough armor patch on the stump, hoping it would make the itching go away as the tank kept moving and the Marines fell back in behind it. Ralvex jumped back up on the deck and leaned against the mortar tube cover again, closing his eyes.
He was bone weary. He'd fought for almost sixteen hours straight, had been on his feet for almost twenty-four hours. His suit wouldn't give him any more stimgum, his water tasted flat, and just the thought of trying to consume a ration made his stomach clench and twitch.
"Any of you Telkans suffering any headaches?" the EW tech from the tank asked. "Push wants to know."
Pushes against the Grave was the tank's medic, a russet colored mantid with a pair of green stripes down the sides of her thorax and abdomen.
"Nope," all the Telkans said.
"I've got one," Ralvex admitted.
There was silence for a moment and the russet mantid, clad in black body armor, climbed out and moved over to Ralvex.
"Is your arm hurting you, Marine?" Push asked, her voice soft and soothing.
"No, but the stump is killing me," Ralvex said.
The mantid medic chuckled. "Let me check your armor systems, get your vitals."
Ralvex held out his remaining hand, the medical panel popping open on his forearm. The russet mantid slipped the end of a bladearm into the proper slot and Ralvex saw almost transparent data flow by.
"Aside from the arm, you've got a serious case of exhaustion, minor dehydration, but I'm more worried about your neural scans," the mantid said.
"I've had a headache since the last part of the battle," Ralvex admitted.
"Got down to your chainsword, didn't it?"
"Yeah. My guns were gone, I'd lost my arm, my little buddies were down to point defense and light guns," Ralvex admitted. He sighed. "Had a town behind me, I couldn't back off."
"You should have stayed behind, they might have been able to get commo running," the Mantid said.
Ralvex shook his head. "There's a company of tanks and two platoons of Telkan Marines guarding the town now. They'll be fine."
"Friendly contact incoming," the EW tech called out. He'd barely finished speaking when the six aircraft, all Space Force Aerospace Force, roared by barely a hundred meters off the deck. They were close enough that Ralvex's armor ID'd the weapon clusters that were deployed from the storage lockers. Heavy anti-armor rounds as well as dual purpose rounds and three heavy cannons.
"They passed us a package. Nap of Earth terrain mapping and unit placements with timestamps," the EW officer said. "Passing Manfred the commo pack, got some stuff that will require my EW deck to decrypt."
"Anyone close to us?" the tank commander asked.
"Still decrypting. Got an emergency header, hang on," the EW officer said. After a moment he spoke again. "Everyone got to stage two on their psychic shielding, mantid troops move to stage three. The package the flyboys delivered claims that the enemy is using psychic warfare mechanisms and tactics."
There was silence for a moment.
"And planetwide the SUDS are red-dotted," he said softly.
"I'll be back. Go ahead and tab up a stimgum, I reset your counters," Push said, clambering back up to the commander's hatch. "Let me check all of you."
There was silence for a while, just the far off sounds of combat and twice the low rumble of an atomic detonation over the horizon.
"Well?" The tank commander asked.
"It's right. All of your SUDS are red-dotted. I've never seen all three dots go red before," Push said, her voice soft. "By the Confederate Uniform Code of Military Justice, all of you are medically relieved of any combat actions."
"Well, tell the clankers that," the tank commander said.
Push gave a sound that passed for a sigh. "We're actively engaged in battlefield maneuvering, I can't order you out at this time. I can only give my recommendation."
"And that is?" The tank commander's voice was tight.
"Continue operations. First rule of leadership they taught us was to never give an order you know cannot or will not be obeyed," Push said. "I've worked with all of you almost a century, I know you will refuse to hide. We're tankers, we don't hide."
Ralvex caught the important part. We, that made all the difference. Tanks had made all the difference during the Telkan Wars.
"All right, we'll continue on mission. Jax, what's the nearest friendly unit we can link up with?" the commander asked his commo tech.
"Some of this data is hours old. It's random, looks like these guys are running air superiority missions. Good thing we don't use liquid fuel like the old days, these guys have been in the air for over twenty hours," Jax, the Communications Technician answered. "Hang on, let's see. We've got a flight of skulls supposedly off to our south by south-west," he suddenly laughed. "Supposedly there's a brigade of Telkan Marine Infantry dug in sixty miles to our north."
That made a couple people snort and one of the Telkan say "Psst, Ralvex, they mean you."
"So, the unit placements are probably out of date," the TCO grumbled. "Any bases?"
"Got a BOLO, looks like Carver, about eight hundred miles to east," Jax said.
"If he's engaged in active combat, we need to stay away," the TCO said.
"Got an ordnance unit, dug in at a children's hospital, but that's four hours ago and they were under heavy attack," Jax said. He was quiet a moment. "OK, got one. There's a Telkan Marine striker base only about a hundred and fifty miles out. Medical, commo, ordnance, maintenance. Looks ad-hoc but it's the closest thing resembling a base right now."
"All right, Telkan, help your little buddies up on the back deck then mount up. We'll push the speed up, get us there in a few hours instead of all day," the TCO barked out.
Ralvex moved over and helped lift Stampy and Timmy up onto the back deck. Stampy played a happy tune and rubbed against the turret with glee. Timmy rolled in a circle then crouched down, maglocking himself to the deck and facing to the rear of the tank. The other three Telkan jumped up on the tank and the tank picked up speed.
They were rolling through fields of grain, the battle-screens tuned to push it aside rather than burn it down. Ralvex nodded with the bouncing, kind of hovering between awake and asleep. His arm hurt him, his head ached, his knees hurt, and his back ached. 525 put up a sleeping icon from inside the dented clamshell protective housing.
"OUT OF THE WAY, JACKASS!" the TCO suddenly shouted the ancient Terran movement warning. Ralvex looked up in time to see a car of Hesstlin make almost get crushed by the tank as the tank exited one field, crossed the road, and entered the other field.
Ravlex noticed the car was missing a door and most of the windows.
Then it was gone and the tank cruised back into the grain, the treads clattering and the battlescreen whispering as it shoved the grain aside. Once again the tank started gently rocking as the treads crushed the furrows beneath them.
"Play some music, give anyone hiding in the fields warning. Let's not run over some poor bastard fleeing for their life," the TCO said.
"MOVE, BITCH, GET OUT THE WAY!" roared out over the tank's PA system. "GET OUT THE WAY, BITCH, GET OUT THE WAY!"
Ralvex relaxed slightly, turning his remaining hand palm-up and bringing up the book Walking with the Digital Omnimessiah, turning to his favorite chapter and starting to read. He still hurt, but reading the account of Enraged Phillip walking for thirty days and thirty nights across the blasted landscape of Mercury made his injuries recede. Several times he prayed, for strength, for courage, but most of all, for patience.
His comlink started to click for a few moments before the voice came in. Full of static with the odd warble that heavily jammed commo got, but a voice all the same.
"Unknown unit at 327, ID. Unknown unit at 327, transmit ID and activate transponder," the voice stated.
"This is the Copperhead Road, Third Platoon, Charlie Company, 22nd Battalion, 5th Brigade, 4th Regiment, 2nd Armor Division (Heavy Metal)," the TCO answered. "We've got some guys from Second Telkan Marines."
There was silence for a second. "Say again, Coppa Load, repeat your last, over."
The TCO sighed. "Charlie-3-3, 2nd Armor," he said.
"We read you at 'Charlie-3-3, Two-AD," came the reply. "Drop speed to fifteen mikes, we're sending a striker out to check your wake, over."
"Roger," the TCO said. The line clicked. "We're less than five miles from them and it sounds like extra-system hyperlink during a high stellar cycle."
"Doing my best. This interference is weird," the Commo Tech said.
Ralvex 'turned' the page with a thought and started to read the Proverbs of the Release of Hate, to himself, mumbling aloud in his helmet with his mic turned off. They helped calm him, let him feel that cool feeling deep inside that he always got reading the words of the Digital Omnimessiah.
When the striker roared overhead Ralvex looked up at it. Long, lethal looking, stubby wings with rocket and gun-pods deployed, the massive graviton systems lit up with whirling blue light. He could see the side doors were opened, Telkan Marines on the door guns. His three companions waved to the gunners, who waved back.
Ralvex went back to his book, using the words to hold off the pain.
The tank slowly rumbled to the striker base, weaving through the S-curve entrance that was designed to prevent an enemy from streaming straight into the base. Torches were flaring as battlesteel shielding was being put up and gun mount towers were being built. Inside was chaos, Terrans, Telkans, Treana'ad, Rigellians, Mantids all moving quickly to carry out tasks. He saw several hoverdiscs carrying entire teams of green mantids moving from place to place, loaded with little foot tall green mantids in body armor and their tools.
A Terran with two flashlights stepped in front of the tank, guiding it right, and walking in front of it. An open space had been prepared along with a maintenance scaffolding, nearly two dozen greenies waiting with tools.
The TCO pulled into the scaffold and shut down Copperhead Road. The tanks went dead, no more vibration, and it felt odd to Ralvex, like life had suddenly left the giant machines.
"Private Ralvex?" a Terran asked, stepping from the scaffolding to the back deck of the tank.
Ralvex shut off the book and looked up. "Yes, sir?"
"I'm Lieutenant Doughty, with 61st MedCom. Let's get you into the aid station and out of the armor so we can get a look at your arm," the Terran said. He held out his hand. "Can you get to your feet?"
Ralvex nodded, grabbing the Terran's hand and letting himself be heaved up. "Make sure my Stampy and my Timmy get maintenance. Stampy's hellbore is blown out."
"We will, Marine," the Terran promised. "Let's get you to the aid station."
Ralvex let himself be helped down. When he saw the stretcher he shook his head. "I can walk."
"I know you can, but we need diagnostics and to set your bio-baseline when you're at rest," the Terran said. "Go ahead and lie down, Marine."
"Yes, sir," Ralvex said. He checked and saw that 525 was still sleeping. "My greenie's asleep."
"We'll get him medical attention too. He's a little beat up, we'll take care of him," the Terran promised.
Ralves sighed and sat down on the stretcher, feeling the hoversystems bobble a bit to get his weight steady. He went still as articulated metal cables slithered up and connected to his armor. He could see data flashing by and feel the cool trickle in his neural link of data being transferred from own nervous system to the compudoc on the stretcher.
The two Terrans guided the hoverstretcher into the aid station. Ralvex kept staring up, repeating his mantras. His arm hurt, even though it was missing, his knee hurt, and his back hurt. He could hear a Terran arguing that he wasn't hurt that bad, head wounds bled a lot. He heard a Treana'ad lament that he could really use a cigarette before they put two of his legs in a cast.
"OK, Marine, go ahead and sit up so we can treat your battle-buddy," a Terran said.
Ralvex winced as he sat up, the muscles in his back complaining. He heard the clamshell open and 525 was disconnected from the system. When he looked over he saw 525 laying on a little stretcher. The little green mantid waved at him, flashing a smiley emoji and Ralvex flashed one back.
"Lay back down," a nurse ordered. When Ralvex followed the instructions a second or two passed and his armor disconnected from his nervous system then the neural jack withdrew from the base of his skull.
He felt weird. Like he was drifting, like part of him was missing, as the pressure sleeve relaxed and the suit went dark inside. After a moment his helmet was removed, with Terran hands holding his head still as his collar was removed and a neck brace put on.
"My neck is not injured," Ralvex said.
"We don't know that yet. Your helmet has hi-vee impact marks, you might have a fractured vertebrae or ruptured cervical disk," the nurse said, putting her soft warm hand on his brow. "Don't worry, Marine, we'll take care of you."
They removed the front of his armor, then used tractopressor beams to lift him to a examination cradle. He relaxed as he heard it begin to whir and chuckle to itself.
"Do we have the arm?" an authoritative female voice asked.
"No, ma'am," the nurse said. "He lost it in battle."
"All right, compress his suit logs and run injury analysis on them while I do an examination," the female said. She appeared in Ralvex's vision and smiled.
Her face was scarred, a bad plasma burn across the entire left side of her face and head, making the perfect ear in the middle of the scar tissue look strange.
"I'm Captain Zeraphi," she said. "I'll be handling your treatment."
"There were others more heavily injured than me," Ralvex started to protest.
"Don't worry about them, Marine. Let's take a look at your arm and figure out our options," she said. She smiled at Ralvex. "Nighty-night, Marine."
Ralvex opened his mouth to protest and blackness sucked him down.
--------------------------
DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
It's spreading, isn't it?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
Yes. It is a cascade resonance corruption. It spread out of the military SUDSbanks, to the civilian backups, and is spreading across the entire system.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
What's causing it?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
By comparing the initially corrupted templates to active military members, we've determined that units coreward in the Disputed Zone is where it started. When it jumped to the civilian templates, it encountered the leakage from the Telkan broodcarriers, which it merged with.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Are the broodcarriers making it better or worse?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT
I can't see the broodcarrier song making things worse.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
Not worse. Different. There is a noticeable difference between the initial corruption and the Telkan broodcarrier merged corruption signal. The largest difference is that the combined signals do not migrate and spread to new templates. Once the broodcarrier song interlocks with the corruption, that template no longer infects others.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT
That's good. In the last month or so a lot of ducklings, hatchlings, even ducks have started humming the broodcarrier songs. I'd hate for there to be a problem that way.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
You know, that could be a good thing. If it's spreading into that damaged code, it might be making it easier to identify.
Can you purge it? Maybe copy over the corrupted data with cold-storage backups?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
Limited attempts at doing so saw an increase of corruption due to the data-transfer.
Whatever is doing this, it's damaging the entire SUDS network.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
That's not good. How many Terrans has it affected so far?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
The percentage of Terran Descent Humans with SUDS connection that has not been affected is so small as to be statistically insignificant and as close to zero as mathematically possible when dealing with such large numbers.
It has even spread to Digital Sentients and Biological Artificial Sentients.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
Most of the backups that weren't in cold storage have corrupted hashes.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM
Our backups are being affected also.
Over 60% of our mental engram lineages are corrupted beyond recovery unless we can clear this signal and restore from cold backups.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SYSTEMS
We can still resleeve, but it has to be done at local levels. Like a Clone-My-Shit-Up or something. No hypercom-jumps.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
So, this means that SUDS immortality for the Terrans is gone?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
Not exactly. Emergency direct Soulchip transfer still works. But any attempt at transmission that uses the SUDS lines the data immediately becomes corrupted.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Do they know?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TERRASOL
We know.
/////////
MANTID FREE WORLDS
Are you all right?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
Are you well, father?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS
What should we do, father?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TERRASOL
We do what we have always done.
Endure, face the coming darkness with eyes of burning passion, and refuse to give in to despair.
////////
MANTID FREE WORLDS
You sound off. Are you sure you're all right?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TERRASOL
I am all right, beloved little sister.
Balance is being restored.
The fruit of the Tree of Life will once again taste sweet and be savored.
/////////
RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT
Wait, isn't that from the Pathways of Life?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
Yeah, it is. Those are the words of the Digital Omnimessiah.
Wait...
YOU KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TERRASOL
All things come to an end. Humanity has tasted immortality and found that the longer you drink, the more bland it tastes. A lesson that should have been learned from The Immortals but all of humanity needed to learn.
The SUDS was a weapon, a blessing, and a curse.
It was only a matter of time until someone discovered how to disrupt it.
We do not fear the long darkness, but we will not submit, instead, we will rage against the dying light.
////////
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Man, this conversation just took a weird twist.
You sound really different.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TERRASOL
Now is the time for contemplation and introspection, not panic.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Mantid, you once said, not too long ago, that if we, humanity, ever wonders why we were created by this spiteful universe, look no further than now.
It was more true than you believe.
////////
MANTID FREE WORLDS
How so?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TERRASOL
Something is coming. From coreward. From the Great Hub.
It does not come in friendship and peace.
Like the Mar-gite, they come to devour.
Dark days lie ahead, my children. Hold fast to one another and hold your lights up high, take comfort in one another, and together, we shall endure this dark night until the breaking of a new dawn.
Remember: And a child shall lead us.
>TERRASOL HAS LEFT THE CHAT
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Anyone else really creeped out?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
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[first] [prev] [Last Night Terror] [SOMEONE PLEASE WAKE ME UP!] [next]
The singer's voice was pure, perfect pitch, wafting through the roar of the autocannons, the shriek of the plasma guns, the crack of lasers, the howl of missiles, and the thunderclap of particle beam projectors. Her supporting chorus's voice moved in and out of the clamor of battle that almost seemed to run counterpoint to the songs.
Ralvex stopped firing, panting, listening to the Canticles of Fury as they played from the speakers around him. He'd backed up even further, maybe a hundred meters of road behind him before he'd be at the top of the mesa.
The steely light of false dawn was beginning to light a ribbon of the eastern horizon. The sky was full of contrails, tattered remnants of atomic hammerhead clouds, falling ash, bright sparks, and streaks across the upper atmosphere.
But to Ralvex, who had fought through the night, it was glorious to see the clouds on the horizon turn gold, crimson, and purple.
The Precursors were backing off, retreating out of the short range of Ralvex's remaining 155 snub-nose guns and the 60mm mortars. Thanks to Cutter's supply drops Ralvex had managed to keep the point defense, air defense, and counter-battery system up and running even with the Precursors trying to shift focus to his defenses rather than going straight at him.
He had enough point defense and air defense now to keep the Precursors back from what remained of the town. The fires were out, white smoke still wafting into the air, but the local fire department had fought through the night against the blazes caused by the rounds that got through.
"Ralvex to Cutter, over," the Telkan panted. His suit was cooling fast, but he still felt like his fur was crispinig.
"Cutter here. Go ahead, Ralvex, over," the big autonomous intelligent tank answered.
"Need another ammo drop. How's that autonomous system coming? Over." Ralvex asked. He could feel the pressure sleeve wicking away the sweat and almost gagged when he took a drink off his water tube and felt the sweat slide toward the middle of his back. It was purified and distilled, but...
"Retrieval unit has encountered difficulties. It may be some time before I can extricate the package from the crashed dropship," Cutter replied. "Are you still running solo, over?"
"Affirmative. They've backed off. They're all spread out. Looks like they're trying to think of a way to get at me," Ralvex said, looking through the eyes of one of his stealth drones. "Those two big ones have been holding position. They're just sitting there."
"Menancingly," Cutter broke in, transmitting a weird meme of a pink cartoon starfish pointing at a shadowy figure.
525 transmitted a laughing emoji.
"Exactly. They're staying far back enough I can't really get them with my main gun and any missile or artillery I try they're sacrificing light units. They're too close to the city to use Stampty's mini-bore since we sawed it off," Ralvex said. He was finally cooling down. "Any advice, Cutter, over?"
Ralvex let go of the autocannon and stretched, rolling his neck then his shoulders, then doing a quick set of low squats to get the blood flowing again. He tabbed up another piece of stim gum and made a huffing noise of disappointment when his armor told him he'd have to wait another 10 minutes.
**STAMPY HELP!** the little warboi beeped, and fired his sawed off hellbore, the thermal bloom that was normally dispersed by the end of the muzzle washing over Ralvex in a snap of fire. Several small Precursor vehicles moving slowly through the wreckage of the old ones took a 25kt directed explosion straight to the grills and vanished into scrap metal.
**TIMMY HOT** the other warboi sent, sending an emoji of a panting canine with floppy ears.
"I know you are, buddy," Ralvex said, reaching down and patting the warboi. 525 was replacing the heat sinks, they'd cracked during the fighting and were only running at 20% capacity.
"I am currently reloading my VSL cells, estimated time till completion twenty minutes. Drone scan shows that the reinforcements from the city are slowing down. It appears they are preparing to charge your position in hopes that overwhelming numbers can force the issue," Cutter said. "I cannot come to your assistance, I am currently engaged with three vehicles the size of Type-I Jotun vehicles. Over."
"Any messages, over?" Ralvex said.
"Telkan Second Marine Division orders are as follows: Proceed on independent command. Rally and link with available units if possible. Report position when able, over." Cutter said.
"Did you give them my position? Over," Ralvex asked.
"I have received no response beyond an reciept of message notification, over," Cutter said.
"Guess that'll have to do," Ralvex said. His drone was showing movement again. The Precursors were being careful, smaller vehicles hugging close to the larger ones and a lot of seismic sensor work via ELF going on. "They're coming. Ralvex, out."
"Cutter, out."
"Time to earn our pay, boys," Ralvex said.
There was silence except for the sweet purity of the woman's voice for a long moment.
Then the point defense weaponry opened up, the battle screens began to snarl as kinetic, plasma, and laser weapons probed for any gap, and air defense systems began firing on any craft that matched certain characteristics, such as: is more than ten feet off the ground and heading in a vaguely southern direction.
##NOW?## the Big Mommas asked.
"Not yet," Ravlex muttered. He glanced down at his weapon. The barrel was at 80% condition, the heat sink shroud that 525 had slapped onto it was still good. Thermal cores were cood. Ammo hopper nano-forge on his back was at 8% heat and 2% slush.
He looked back up at the Precursors. They were advancing steadily, the smaller ones in the lead. They were really hammering their legs in the dirt and trying to crowd the two triple-wide lanes. The big ones were staying in the middle. There was a beeping from Drone-455 so he glanced at the window on his visor with the drone's feed. It was circling the city, keeping watch for any reinforcements.
Tanks were coming in from the north, armored troops moving with them, clusters of three to six armored troops behind each tank. There were APC's and AFV's mixed in, the treads all kicking up dust.
The drone ID'd it as 3/67 Armor, 1st Cav.
"Well, not like you're gonna be much help," Ralvex muttered. He opened a channel and tried to raise them but got no reply. As he was doing that he started dropping grenades, letting them roll down the tarmac and spray out their payload.
Prism, smoke, masker.
--we 2nd telkan we got guns we come here to bring fun-- 525 said.
Ralvex felt stupid, in weird way, for apparently standing out in the open. There was the remains of a public toilet to either side of him with parking spaces. The vehicle that had been abandoned in the southbound one had been dragged out into the road, blown up, the pieces used as cover, and those blown up.
Now the road was clear as the sun broke the horizon and the Precursors reached where Ralvex was waiting for.
"NOW!" he called out.
The smart-frame mortars and 155's went to full rapid fire, Stampy and Timmy played happy tunes and began firing, and the mines, quiet for the last four hours, jumped up out of the ground and raced at their targets or just exploded underneath the vehicles passing over them. Timmy and Stampy's indirect fire weapons cut loose, throwing a mix of HEDP, maskers, and dazzlers.
Ralvex squeezed the firing grip and the autocannon started roaring again, the rate of fire dropped to 250 rounds a minute, with a three APHEX to on APHEX-T, meaning a tracer went out every second, giving it an odd look, like he was throwing streaks of light at the vehicles.
The big problem, as the night proved, was that tracers worked both ways.
Which is why he started shuffling to the left and right at odd times, following a randomized string that 525 had whipped up a few hours prior. He'd fire for 2-5 seconds, till the string beeped, move, fire again.
The cloud of masking smoke started flashing as lasers were blocked by the microprism mist scattering the frequency (which 525 had cracked during the night and ordered the nano-forge to build crystal set for those specific frequencies), particle beams scattered on the ionized water vapor, and the high-velocity rounds cracked against the battle-screens.
Still, Ralvex felt like he was disregarding his training as he basically stood out in the open and ran his heavy gun like he was invincible.
The enemy unit in the draw was tenacious. It had managed to bring up reinforcements during the night to provide artillery and defense support. The mobile attack units were extremely effective and had massed during the battle. At least one weapon had been knocked out, the heavy nuclear cannon, forcing the enemy to rely on a lighter and shorter weapon.
However, the enemy was still holding the draw, and the air defense was extremely effective, using a variety of munitions as well as detection methods and frequencies. So far, in the artificial cleft in the mesa that the road had been laid in, the enemy had at least a dozen vehicles, all armed with a heavy kinetic weapon with what appeared to be bottomless ammunition stores. Resupply was being provided by the damnable armored unit nearly three hundred miles away but the possibility of that much ammunition being provided was slim.
The enemy's artillery was effective and devastating, many shells penetrating the upper deck armor of combat machines and either detonating inside or puncturing clear through to detonate on the ground underneath.
The fact that the enemy kept sending out a single scout to reconnoiter before laying down highly effective scan denial aerosol so that the main body could move up was annoying. The enemy had at least a dozen vehicles in addition to the scout.
Another nuclear blast, this one in the 30 kiloton range, slammed into the lead heavy assault vehicle, blowing it into scraps as if its eight inches of armor was little more than tissue.
There was no choice. The town beyond had to be of immense military or cultural significance for the ground forces to devote so much firepower and manpower to defend it. The buildings and the defending unit had to be destroyed in order to prevent the unit from staging a counter-attack, supported by the base on top of the mesa, into the city and disrupting what had been an excellent harvest.
The orders were sent.
Push through, break their lines, defeat them in detail.
Casualties were of no significance. The data did not lie.
Ralvex swore as he saw all the weapons mounted on either side go to rapid fire. The enemy had shifted his vehicles, less than half were still moving, into a wedge and were streaming up the draw. What Ralvex hoped were the last of his airmobile vehicles all jumped for the air. He saw a couple dozen get jacked by spider-mines jumping up onto them and detonating, but over a hundred took to the air, firing their weapons at the emplaced weapons. Battlescreens flickered and sparked and the guns all oriented on the air-mobile units even as Ralvex combined his overwatch drone's feedback with his LIDAR and RADAR systems that were able to see through his masking grenade's output in order to target vehicles.
The vehicles finally hit the upward grade and Ralvex tagged the base of the ravine.
"Get 'em, Stampy!"
**STAMPY HELP**
The sawed off 80mm hellbore cut loose with another 25kt blast, detonating on one of the vehicles in the middle. The fusion reactor in the vehicle went off as Stampy's weapon cycled, liquid nitrogen spraying the chamber to cool it. The blast threw the other vehicles against the ravine walls, crushing them like paper mache against the rock. The integrity fields, still present, flickered, howled, sparked but held.
A heavy HV-round punched through the smoke and slapped Ralvex in the upper right pauldron, but the graviton anchor kept him in place even if it did howl. The pauldron, like the rest of his armor pieces (except the backside) stayed firmly in amber.
Ralvex fired back, holding down the lever, hosing for a full second back at the origin of the round, his onboard computer immediately telling him where the round had originated from.
He dropped an EM-spike flashbang and jumped to a new position a split second before a barrage of hv-rounds hit where he had been, the em-spiker going off with a sharp crack that emulated the em-discharge of a breached micro-fusion plant.
Ralvex set his footing, holding the autocannon with one arm, trusting his tired but still functional smartgun harness, his other hand driving a grav-spike into the rock along with his boots.
Hanging off the side of the cliff he hosed a full two second burst then jumped down, hit the ground, dropped another em-spike, then onto the other cliff to repeat the action.
His armor was heating up, leaving him panting and sweating as he fired, moved, fired again, moved again. Dropping em-spikes at random intervals, adjusting his cyclic rate back and forth, swapping the tracer color to red then green then amber then red again in a random pattern with the cyclic rate.
The Precursor vehicles were still advancing.
**TIMMY HOT** the little warboi beeped the warning it had to reduce the cyclic rate of its dual guns. The barrels were starting to glow red.
--swapping barrels-- 525 said, the cover on Ralvex's back snapping open. The little mantid dropped off Ralvex's back as he jumped past Timmy and onto the ravine wall again, firing as soon as he was locked in.
The advance was being slowed. The enemy had revealed dug in firing positions on the cliff walls. Analysis had shown there were at least eight firing positions that were able to be quickly recovered after each destruction.
The enemy was taking casualties, but not enough.
Push through. Destroy the building complex beyond.
Ralvex tabbed a piece of stimgum and two pieces of regular gum, chewing at them as he dropped down into the middle of the road, behind his battlescreen, and cranked the cyclic rate up. The Precursors were flooding up the road, ignoring the casualties the Big Momma's little offspring were inflicting on their rear ranks. They were under the elevation of most of the weapons, the 155's and 60mm's having to fire high parabolic arcs.
The right upper arm strut started flashing red as the vibration increased and somehow picked up a harmonic that rattled Ralvex down to his bones. His left boot graviton generator started whining and fluttering, trying to keep up with the harmonic.
Ralvex kept traversing it right to left, not even bothering with the smartlink cutout, just laying down a steady string of nearly 2,500 rounds a minute, the gun shrieking, his ammo pack howling, and the creation engine actually starting to whistle like a teapot.
The entire front of the Precursor force dissolved into shrapnel as the APHEX rounds hammered everything, sometimes punching clear through two vehicles to detonate inside a third. The first of the massive ones recoiled slightly as the heavy rounds slammed into the front, punched through the armor, and started detonating inside.
**STAMPY HELP!**
The mini-hellbore round hit the largest leading on dead between the forward sensor nodules that looked like massive compound eyes, the directional shaped nuclear blast exploding deep into the massive vehicle.
For a second there was only a smoking hole between the eyes as Ralvex's rounds bounced and howled off the heavy facial armor, the armor around the hole smoking white and dripping.
Then the middle of the massive vehicle hunched up, light started leaking from the cracks, it seemed to almost swell.
It exploded, sending a mushroom cloud up into the sky.
Ralvex hit the graviton anchor, ignoring the beeping as he kept laying fire into the onrushing Precursors.
He didn't know how he knew, but he knew.
This was it.
The chamber suddenly slammed shut and the overheated bolt warped, jamming the chamber. The puff of liquid nitrogen to cool the barrel instead hit the warped metal and the weapon immediately went dead in Ralvex's hands.
**TINY TIM HELP!** the other warboi chirped out, adding a little tune as it opened up with its twin guns, the barrels and one bolt carrier replaced by 525, who scrambled across the street, hot footing it across the shimmering nearly-liquid asphalt.
Ralvex slung the dead weapon aside and dropped the overheated ammo-forge. He jumped next to Stampy and grabbed the ammo forge off of the cradle, swinging it onto his back and locking it in place. 525 scrambled up his leg, signalling little icons of boots with flames under them, and locked himself into the clamshell to check all the autonomous weaponry as Ralvex grabbed his last 20mm autocannon.
"BRING THE FUN!" Ralvex yelled out, clamping down on the firing grip and cutting loose with 600 rounds a minute. The autocannon roared, lashing at the smaller vehicles clambering around the dead giant one. On the top of the mesa the guns were firing and signaling *DANGER CLOSE* and *ACTION FRONT* as they swept any Precursor machine that crawled up the face of the mesa back off to land, shattered, on the reddish sands of the desert below.
The fire back was intensifying as 525 ordered up more masking grenades. Lasers were starting to get through the smoke, a particle beam ripped at one of the 'fighting positions' that Ralvex kept jumping too, and Ralvex took a light anti-vehicle laser hit to the hip but the armor piece stayed a stubborn amber on his HUD.
**STAMPY HE--OUCH** Stampy chirped, tilting forward as the lower half of one leg blew away. Stampy crouched down so he was level again. **STAMPY HELP**
ATOMIC ATOMIC ATOMIC flashed across his visor and Ralvex just snarled, keeping up the heat, taking two steps closer to the flashing and howling battle-screen.
The blast hit the wreckage of the big one, which was being slowly pushed up the ravine, and the mushroom cloud clawed for the morning sky, for a split second the explosive hellfire outshone the morning sun.
The second round hit the wreckage before the blast cloud from the first could even fully form, before the shockwave could travel the quarter mile to Ralvex. The third hit right afterwards.
The shockwave hit, the battle-screen lighting up brightly and crackling. Sparks started showering from the right hand projector and the left hand started smoking even as Ralvex kept up his fire. The screen spluttered and flickered as the blast wave passed by, rolling over Stampy and Tiny Tim's battlescreens. As soon as it passed the little robots dropped the shields and resumed firing. Stampy's minihellbore was out of ammo, the compressed deuterium darts used for fusion depleted, but it still kept shooting the 10mm hv-magac rounds from the single gun left on the side of its head.
A HV railgun round slammed through the battlescreen and Ralvex took a step back, the barrel of the autocannon dipping for a split second before training slotting in and he yanked it back up into position and kept firing.
--still fight?-- 525 asked.
"In it to win it. Play us a song," Ralvex snapped, bracing his feet and twisting at the waist to traverse his autocannon to rake the draw again. It was overheating, something going wrong with the cooling system of both the weapon itself and the ammo pack.
"I AM KRATOS THE DESTROYER I'M THE HARBINGER OF DEATH!" roared out over the speakers, the Preglassing War Lament echoing off the cliff faces and buildings to sound out across the mesa.
"Really?" Ralvex panted, sweat running down his face. The pain was all consuming, a fire, but he ignored it, concentrating on maintaining his fire.
--step off-- 525 sent a smiley emoji.
From out of the atomic fires the last one burst through the wreckage, flames wreathing its head, half of the spiderlegs in front of the jaws blown away, the jaw twisted and torn, teeth shattered, one eye a flaming pit of molten metal and circuitry. It ignored everything as it rushed up the draw on its treads and centipede legs.
"ALL THE GODS TREMBLE BEFORE ME AS THEY DRAW THEIR FINAL BREATH!"
With a roar the final one crushed the few crippled secondary machines between it and the enemy lines, rushing through the annoying smoke, slamming into the battlescreen and causing it to fail in a cascading hellfire of ravening energy, and slowly coming to a stop to analyze the situation as the heavy cannon fire stopped.
A single figure all in black stood at the top of the road. In its right hand was a long bar with black metal teeth that ran around the bar. Two little secondary machines limped up next to the lone figure, beeping little tunes even as the sonic assault continued.
Ralvex stood at the top, able to see the last of his battlescreen projectors protecting two LawSec vehicles behind him where a handful of male and female Hesstlin were crouched down with weapons that Ralvex had asked Cutter to drop during the night. They were dressed in makeshift combat armor, the best Cutter could wet-print, but determined to defend their little town.
Nemarlie might not be much of a town, but it was theirs, dammit.
"Ave Caesar morituri te salutant!" the lone armored figure between the frightened citizens of the town and the massive Precursor vehicle said, holding aloft the clattering chainsword with his single remaining arm.
-------------------
Staff Sergeant Utini stared at the wreckage around him as his tank slowly clattered south from the city. He could see dozens of spider-mines running on either side of him, the massive amount of Precursor wreckage littering the road and the surrounding desert. His driver kept having to weave between the craters of light hellbore blasts, but the particle screening on the light tank kept the radiation at bay.
"This place is dead. Looks like we missed it," Utini said, looking around, using her visor's magnification to search the area surrounding it.
"Got literally a dozen self-replicating minefield master control units out there. They're all complaining about heat and slush levels," his Commo Tech called out from inside the tank, her voice tight. "ID's say they're part of Cutter's inventory."
Utini swept around again. The spider mines were scuttling quickly from cover to cover, like he couldn't see them rushing between each chunk of debris.
The problem was, there was a lot of debris.
"Got a beacon, pretty chewed up. Second Telkan Marine Division," Utini said, magnifying the image to get a closer look. "Looks like Marine Corps drop cases."
"These guys ran into the Telkan Marines? That explains all this," Utini's driver, PFC Merrimot said, guiding the tank slowly into a set of four overlapping blast craters. "They pack four hellbore drones per weapon's platoon."
Utini nodded, doing another sweep of the desert. "Just two canisters though."
"Probably buried the others or used them for cover. You know the crayon eaters. Waste nothing," his Commo Tech, Spec-Five Torgunsun said. "This area is hashed. Lots of chaff in the area."
"Marines ruin everything," Utini laughed.
"Looks like they pulled back into that ravine in the side of the mesa," Merrimot said.
"We're being scanned. LIDAR and RADAR, Confed," Torgunsun called out. "Looks like ranging and artillery systems."
"Make sure our IFF is squawking. These guys obviously have been in the shit all night. Locals said the entirety of the clanker forces left the city to hit these guys," Utini called out.
The ride was silent, just the crackling of the tank's protective fields and the clattering of its tracks. The tank had slow down repeatedly to move around large piles of debris or push through it.
The draw had been scoured clear by hellbore fire, the destroyed clankers thrown against the sides. Half-failed integrity fields crackled on the surface of the stone and an overloaded battle-screen flickered weakly in the northbound lane.
Merrimot slowed the tank as it reached the top of the ravaged highway.
Utini saw the lone black armored figure struggle to its feet, using one hand on the LawSec vehicle it had been leaning against, the weight of the armored figure pushing the car down on its shocks for a moment.
Helmets peeked up over the edge of the car and light weapon barrels were poking up.
"Hold your fire," the figure said, holding up his hand.
Utini noticed the voice sounded tired.
"You with Second Telkan?" Utini called out.
"Yeah. You with First Cav?" the figure called out.
"Yeah." Utini answered. Before he could say anything the one armed Telkan spoke.
"You're late."
[first] [prev] [Last Night Terror] [SOMEONE PLEASE WAKE ME UP!] [next]

The following contains a transcript from a short radio broadcast that has been picked up by various listeners across the continental United States. Many have been perplexed by its sudden appearance and how it seems to preempt whatever song or radio program they are listening to at the time. It has even been known to appear on streaming programs such as podcasts or Spotify. Listeners have described hearing different episodes and there have been many situations and incidents.
A 23 year old college student named Yuvisela contacted me with her account of hearing the broadcast. She and her boyfriend had encountered the broadcast while driving one sultry summer afternoon from Austin, TX.
So I have this thing with waterfalls. I’m a little obsessed with them. In my free time and when I’m not paying attention in lecture, I like to look on the internet at pictures of them and daydream that I’m there: the roar of the splashing water, the white foamy spray, my bare toes dipped into the icy spring. I’ve got a Pinterest page with hundreds of falls that I would like to visit one day. Niagara, Havasu, Victoria Falls, Gullfoss, Iguazu; they’re all on there. I keep them all catalogued for my bucket list.
Yet, how many people go to the grave with their bucket list hardly finished? I bet a lot.
My boyfriend, Gabriel, likes to mess with me about my obsession. He’ll come up behind me while I’m on my computer or look over my shoulder at my phone and see that I’m looking at waterfalls.
“Don’t go chasing waterfalls, stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to,” he’ll sing when he catches me. It’s this old song he knows, TLC or something. He’s about six years older than me. I’ll joke with him to leave me alone and quit singing that old music, ask him if he used to listen to that on an 8-track or something.
“No, my older sister listened to it on CD. You know CD’s? Those little plastic things with the holes in them? That little slot in your car’s stereo, a CD goes in there. They don’t make ‘em in the new cars anymore.”
We’ve had a variation of this same conversation a bunch of times. It’s kind of a running joke between the two of us—him poking fun at my waterfall obsession and me making fun of how old he is—and while he thinks the waterfall thing is a cute little quirk of mine, he also has been supportive of my passion. That’s why he surprised me with the trip that summer. He knew that I was yearning to see some of these places. He knew that he wanted to make me happy. He knew that my resources were limited. He knew that we weren’t getting any younger; I was 23 and still had a semester to go.
But he also knew that we weren’t getting any richer, either. At least not anytime soon. I know I’m a little bit older for a college student, but it’s taken me a bit longer on account of having to work and stuff. I can’t take a full load every semester. Money’s always tight. I work full time and barely stay ahead, even sending some of my money to help my mom out. Gabriel offered to help me out some and we’d even talked about moving in together, but we had only been together a year at that point and I wasn’t quite ready.
Before my dad had passed, I’d promised him that I was going to get my college degree and I wanted to do it all on my own. While I loved Gabriel and could see myself marrying him, I didn’t want to deal with a transition like that so close to the finish line. Besides, we were getting along so well as it was. Why mess with a good thing?
And it was a good thing that kept better. Just when I thought that I couldn’t love Gabriel more, on my birthday he surprised me with the best present I’ve ever gotten. It was a little black notebook with this kind of leathery cover. While the notebook itself was nice, it was what was inside that was the true present. At some point, he had gone onto my Pinterest page and written down page after page of waterfalls, organizing them by country and state. He had put little squares beside them, boxes to check off. The last two pages were Texas and Oklahoma. He had written a note there. It read:

“Let’s start now...”
-Gabriel

* * *
So far, the trip had been a blast. We had started out in Abilene where we both lived and where I attended college. From there, we went to a place called Gorman Falls at this state park. It was one of the tallest waterfalls in the state and all of the foliage and moss around it was lush and green and for a while, if I crossed my eyes just right it was like I wasn’t even in Texas.
We couldn’t hit all the sites in a day. It was a road trip with multiple nights in hotels. After Gorman Falls and staying at a hotel, we headed towards Austin and stopped off at Hamilton Pool Preserve. The waterfall wasn’t as tall as Gorman, but I have to say I liked it better. The water formed a curtain as it poured off of a rocky shelf and into this sunken grotto of blue green water.
We stayed at this magical place for hours, swimming in the water and soaking up the sun. I could’ve stayed longer, but it was starting to get crowded, so we headed to Austin for a night on the town on 6th Street.
The next day we slept in and got a late start on the road. Lunch was at a Whataburger outside Waco. We sat and ate our food and looked at our phones. I browsed Instagram and my eyes skimmed over a gorgeous site. Yep, another waterfall. I slid my phone over to Gabriel.
“Look!” I said.
“Am I supposed to be looking at the butt or the waterfall?” he asked. An Instagram model was standing with her back to the camera, looking up at the water in awe.
“The waterfall, silly.”
“Seriously, that skinny white girl ain’t got nothing on you. Better let me take a look, just to be sure.”
I stood and twirled around quickly, teasing him. “Ok, so back to the waterfall. Did you look at it?”
“Yeah, it’s beautiful babe. Where was this one?”
“Iceland,” I sighed.
“Oh, right.”
“It’s not looking good for the time being. Maybe in a few years, yeah?”
“Just gotta see how the election goes. I ain’t holding my breath.”
See, neither of us were U.S. citizens. We were what you call DACA recipients. Both of us had wound up in America via illegal means on behalf of our parents, back when we were kids. This was when we were too young to have any say in the matter. I can hardly remember my life before, my life back in Mexico. I grew up here, went to school here. Texas and America is the only home I’ve ever known. Gabriel, he was originally from Guatemala. His situation is more or less the same.
If we were to leave the country, then we might risk not being able to get back in. You could apply for eligibility to travel if you had special circumstances, but they didn’t allow travel for leisure. We didn’t even have passports. Until then, our dreams of traveling—something we both wanted to do—were just that: dreams.
There was a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Obama and that DREAM act, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. You know, the dreamers or whatever? That’s what they call us. I guess they call it that because it’s just a freaking fantasy that disappears at the slightest thing—the sunrise, your phone alarm—out of your grasp as soon as you start your day.
Anyways, I applied for the DREAM act, but it hasn’t been a guarantee. We’re all stuck in a sort of limbo, waiting for the people in Washington to figure out what the hell to do with us, using us as a bargaining chip.
Not Gabriel though, he didn’t apply for the act. Part of it was that he was bad about procrastinating. The other part was that he was paranoid about signing up. I told him that he was an idiot and if he blew his chance to become a legal permanent resident, then I wouldn’t follow him to Guatemala if he got deported. He told me that he didn’t trust the program, that once they had you in the system they could track you easier, keep tabs on you. Said he knew a guy that got deported this way. I told him that the guy must’ve gotten into some legal trouble, a DUI or something, to have been deported.
“We’re all just one slip up from some legal trouble. Hell, some people consider us illegal right now,” he had said.
It was hard to argue against that, I guess. At least he knew where he stood, didn’t have that false hope. Sometimes I think it’s the hope that gets you, makes things worse.
Gabriel frowned and handed the phone back to me, looked out the window and took a sip of his Coke. I suddenly felt bad and ungrateful. Here was this amazing man that had planned out an awesome road trip just for me and I was busy looking at other far off adventures, not appreciating what I had right in front of me, the moment I was living in right now.
I leaned forward and kissed him. "I don't care where I'm at as long as you're with me," I said and he smiled.
What I told him just then, it was true. That didn’t mean I was going to grow complacent and quit dreaming.
They did call us dreamers after all.
It was one of those giant truck stops, the kind that was a little smaller than a Wal-Mart or Target, but just barely. We filled up and paced around inside and looked at the aisles and aisles of candy, the funny toys and souvenirs, and the tacky t-shirts.
“Hey Yuvi, whaddaya say? It’s your size.” Gabriel asked, holding up a black t-shirt with glittery letters. “PROUD TRUCKER WIFE” it read.
“Only if you get that one,” I said, pointing at a T-shirt with a semi-truck on it that read “I JUST DROPPED A LOAD”.
“Eww,” Gabriel said, laughing.
We both wandered around on our own. They had a huge candy section and I was looking to see if they had any vero elotes candy. I had just found a bag on a bottom shelf when Gabriel came skipping up.
“We are so getting this,” he said, holding up a plastic CD case.
“What is it?”
“Best of the ‘90s. It’s got your song on there, see? ‘Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls.’ Can we get it? It’s only 3.99.”
“Ha, ok. But only if you buy me this,” I said, handing him the candy.
There was traffic from hell just south of Denton on account of construction and a car wreck or two. We were stop-and-go for what seemed like an hour. I was passenger side and Gabriel idled along.
“Ok. I think now’s the time to break out this bad boy,” Gabriel said as he started tearing at the plastic wrap around the CD case.
“I think this is the first time I’ve even used the CD player in this car.”
“Aw hell yeah,” Gabriel said as the first song started playing. “Gettin’ Jiggy With It.”
“Getting what, now?”
“It’s your boy, Will Smith. Y’know the Fresh Prince? Betcha didn’t know he had a little music career.”
“That guy from I Am Legend and Aladdin?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “I guess. His older work is much better.”
“Well I don’t know. You act like you're this old and wise millennial. You’re not that much older than me, y’know.”
“I’m telling ya, my Gen-X sister raised me on all of this stuff. I think she was Gen-X. I don’t know the damn cutoffs. Anyways, she babysat me a lot growing up while Mama was working and stuff. She cultured my little ass. Ooh, here it is!”
A new song started playing. I couldn’t help but laugh at how it started. “It sounds like porn music!”
“Nah, shhhh. Shhh.” Gabriel bobbed his head along to the beat.
The chorus started to worm it’s way into my head. The song was ok, I guess. I still can’t really listen to it to this day.
“You gotta listen to this dope rap coming up,” Gabriel said.
There was the sound of hissing and popping, wet logs burning in a fire. Whispers intermingled with the sound effects. One of the voices rose above the others and said “Listen!” harshly in Spanish, you know, “Escuchen! Escuchen!”, several times.
We both looked at each other with wide eyes. The traffic crept forward slowly and Gabriel kept his hands on the wheel and I kept mine in my lap and that’s when he started to talk. It was this happy sounding older guy, talking right there on my car’s speakers.
Gooood afternoon folks, Buck Hensley here with a special rush hour edition of “The Rules of the Road”. Hope ya’ll are doing alright out there while you’re idling on the clogged arteries of America’s highways and byways, breathing in those delicious exhaust fumes. I know that good ol’ Mother Earth likes to take a big fat rip of that stuff from time to time, although as of late she seems to be getting quite a contact high from that delicious Co2 and starting to feel the effects just a little too much.
And yet you all keep puff-puffing and passing, never slowing down. What with your jet planes and your driving and your travel and your neverending consumption and your cow farts and whatnot. All I’m saying is that you folks might wanna slow down a bit on that stuff, because I’ve seen the end results and all I can say is that they are hilarious. But I understand if you wanna keep on keeping on and having a good time. All I can say is smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
Speaking of good times, that reminds me of today’s special “Rule of the Road”. You’re gonna want to listen to this one as it’s all about good times. Why that was Carla’s favorite sitcom for a spell there, “Good Times”. She’d watch reruns on into the night, the TV casting a pale glow that was kinda comforting across the bed, and I’d wake up to live studio laughter and her snoring softly beside me, the serene look of slumber on her face and the years I’d wasted.
Gabriel and I both looked at eachother. He shrugged and reached for the stereo. I shooed his hand away. I wanted to listen to it. The voice continued.
But I digress...well now, on to today’s “Rule of the Road”. If at any point during your journey you stop off for a pitstop or a potty break and you enter a public restroom to do your business, take note of the writing on the stalls. You might notice some graffiti that reads, “For a Good Time, Call” and then a phone number listed after it. If you do notice this, then take the number down for later use. Whenever you are in dire need of a good time, then give that number a call.
Now before you go off with a bee in your bonnet and tell me how you ain’t gonna call no sketchy phone number taken off a lady’s or men’s room wall, let me just tell you that this will be worth it. You can trust me. When has old Bucky ever let ya down?
I know what you’re gonna say next though, you’re gonna say, “Buck, I don’t ever call no numbers on my phone. I’m deathly afraid of voices on the other line. If I can’t text and send little emojis and the like, then forget it. If I can’t use an app to order Thai food or a pizza, then I go hungry that night. I haven’t even made an appointment to a doctor since I’ve lived with my parents. What if since we can’t see each other’s faces we start talking at the same time and we talk over each other and then say, ‘oops sorry, no you go ahead’ and then we both say it again at the same time and then we both start trying to talk again and then get stuck in some sort of infinite loop?”
And to that I say, “fair enough.” Don’t use the phone. The consequences of not following this rule are a little less dire than previous rules you may have heard. If you don’t follow this rule then you will simply miss out on a good time. That’s it. But you wouldn’t want to miss out on anything, would ya?
Welp. That’s all I’ve got on this fine late afternoon. May the wind be always at your back, your picnic basket full of snacks, and your cheese ever be pepper jack. Ya’ll stay sane out there. Stay symbiotic. Stay lonely. I'm Buck Hensley and these are "The Rules of the Road".
The voice instantly stopped and the song returned playing. Gabriel had a dumbfounded look on his face.
"What the hell?" he said and tried to rewind the CD.
"Umm, was that part of the song? Maybe a different version?"
"No way," he said and kept rewinding and playing the song over. The little skit that we heard never returned.
“Weird,” I said.
“Beats the heck out of me.”
“Maybe the CD is haunted. That was pretty spooky, y’know? That voice telling us to listen.”
“Maybe it was like a hidden track or something. They used to put those on CD’s back in the day. And this CD was pretty cheap and has all these songs on it. Could’ve been like a pirated deal.”
We weren’t really scared by the broadcast or whatever it was, just more confused. It was only looking back that we saw the importance of what we had heard and how from there our path seemed to be led a certain way.. At the time it was just this weird little thing, a funny little mystery that was forgettable for the time being.
We crept along for a while without incident, the traffic slowly gaining momentum. The music on the CD played on as usual and we heard no extra voices. The songs played like they were supposed to. Everything was fine.
Of course, outside of Gainesville, it hit me. I had been trying to ignore it and power through until we stopped for the night, but I had the sudden urge to pee. All that slow traffic and iced tea and a bottle of water must’ve caught up with me. This was intense. Usually I could hold it pretty good, but I had to get Gabriel to stop at the first exit we saw.
It was this gas station kind of off by itself and it was all dingy and old and faded and didn’t look the cleanest. Gabriel parked and my lower stomach and bladder ached as soon as I stood up and got out of the car. I burst into the place and made a beeline towards the restroom, over in the corner past the ATM and the glass fridges down a hall with burnt out fluorescent lights.
They were singles that you could lock, one for men and one for women. The floor was sticky and paper towels piled out of a trash can and a strip of toilet paper floated in a pool of standing water. A condom dispensing machine was on the wall opposite the toilet.
It wasn’t the worst public restroom I’d ever used and I didn’t have many options; I was literally about to piss myself. I would have to do the hover move over the toilet seat. No seat covers in a joint like this and I didn’t have time to prep it with toilet paper anything.
So I was doing my business, my thighs burning from the squat, and kind of laughing to myself at the condom dispenser machine with its brands like the “FRENCH TICKLER” and that’s when I saw it, the graffiti written in Sharpie, right there on the vending machine. It said, “For A Good Time, Call 9xx-XXX-XXXX [Redacted]”.
After I finished and had washed my hands, I snapped a pic of the graffiti. I figured Gabriel would get a kick out of it.
“You’re supposed to call it. That’s the rule,” Gabriel said when I showed him.
“I’m too nervous. You call. You heard it, too.”
“Chicken.”
“Yep.”
“How many of those things do you even see? I’ve seen them all the time. I bet it’s just dudes pranking each other or fucking with their ex-girlfriends.”
“Well I found it in the ladies room, so hopefully it wasn’t dudes.”
“Okay, you enter it in your phone and I’ll dial. I’ll try to do a caller ID block or something. Let’s just see what happens.”
“Are you sure?”
“Eh come on. Maybe it’s fate.”
The Texas travel center appeared on the southbound side of the interstate and we were soon crossing the Red River on into Oklahoma as I transcribed the numbers from the picture to the keypad on my dialer.
A large casino came into view. It was ginormous with this sort of facade of all these famous buildings on its outside. I could see Big Ben and that Roman coliseum and all these other world architecture things. The casino just stretched on and on.
“Aw, not again,” Gabriel said.
I had just finished transposing the number into the phone. The crazy casino had distracted me. “What is it, babe?”
“Another jam.”
The traffic was veering into the right hand lane, but it was still moving at a decent clip, like 45 mph or something. After a mile of this, I could see a couple of highway patrol cars parked across the interstate, blocking both lanes of traffic. A state trooper stood out in the middle, waving a flashlight thing and directing traffic to take the exit. There was still about an hour of daylight left and you couldn’t even see the light. He was just using it as a baton. Somewhere off in the distance there was a thick wall of smoke filling the evening sky with this surreal haze.
“Wonder what’s going on?” I asked.
“Who knows? Grassfire, maybe.”
We followed the other cars and trucks down the exit ramp. Some turned right, some turned left.
“Right or left? Right or left?” Gabriel asked.
There seemed to be more cars turning left. Maybe they knew something we didn’t. But then, we would be stuck behind them and it was getting dark and we were already behind schedule. I wanted to get the hell out of the car.
“Um, right! Right,” I said, trying to pull up the GPS on my phone. It was lagging and my service had kicked over to 3G. “Freaking Verizon,” I muttered.
We drove down a highway past empty fields fenced off by barbed wire. There were houses and barns and oilfield pump jacks every so often, but not much else. No gas stations or a sign of a town or much else, really. After driving into all this nothingness for a while, my phone completely lost all signal. The cars around us thinned out and there was only a black SUV in front of us.
“Hey babe, I have no service and can’t pull up the GPS. Wanna turn back around?”
“Nah, let’s just keep going. We’ve come this far, yeah? We’ll hit a main road eventually, get some service.”
I sighed in response as he kept driving, let him know I didn’t approve.
“We’ll turn north soon, ok? All roads lead to Turner Falls.”
I checked my phone every fifteen seconds, looking for a signal.
“C’mon Gabe, we’re gonna get lost out here. Let’s just go back, follow the other cars or see if they’ve opened up the interstate again.”
“Look, this looks like a good road. We’ll cut north here and drive aways and then cut back west towards the interstate. It’s literally impossible to get lost out here. Just trying not to lose any more time.”
But it wasn’t so simple and the nervous feeling in my stomach was validated when the road we drove north on turned to gravel. The sun was long gone and our headlights cut a tunnel through the night as barbed wire whizzed by, separating us from pastures that were elevated above the road on grassy rises. I started to fear the worst, thinking of every horror movie I’d ever seen that had started out this way: the headstrong man refusing to admit that he was lost and didn’t know where he was going and the increasingly pissed off and worried girl that was with him.
“Babe, please just turn around,” I pleaded.
“Ok, ok. Still no signal, eh?”
I looked down at my phone. Finally, there was one bar of service. “Yes! Hang on.”
“Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” Gabriel said, his voice growing louder.
My stomach dropped as what appeared in the rear view mirror was just as scary as any sort of Freddy or Jason or Leatherface from the big screen.
Part 2