4:47 am.
The alarm went loud, waking a tall figure out of his bunk. The 198-cm-tall muscular man with the matte black skin except for his face, which is a 30-year-old Eurasian man, and a pair of eyes embedded with a gold circular circuit by the irises.
He got up and raised his hand just to stroke his messy black hair. Look to his left, see his jacket hanging on the metallic wall. Look to his right, see the desk with his foot-long pistol. It's time to wear the pants now, Jackals. As he thought so, he walked up to the closet next to his jacket, wore the proper outfit, and now he's ready for boring ass duty in the morning.
"It always has to be this time, didn't it?" He sighed, grabbed his pistol, stored it by the holster, and tied his boot up to walk out of the dorm with the jacket labeled on the back "The Iron Order."
He booted up his communication bracelet with its triangular pattern; it projects the holographic interface before his face.
"What is the status, Elysia?" He spoke with a crack in the morning while walking in the metallic hallway with a heavy footstep.
"The weather is slightly windy at 26 degrees Celsius, or 78.8 degrees Fahrenheit, to be exact, perfect for jogging in the morning." Suddenly, the sound of expressionless women came straight into his cochlea.
As for Jackals, he sighs as if he is disappointed in the unclear question that he asked before.
"Next time, please state your order with detail and thoughtfulness." Said, the female voice with no emotion. "Anyway, there's a message from Col. Walter Jaeger saying that he wants to meet you by 5:00." The voice informed him about the rendezvous.
"Take it easy, aye? got time for coffee anyway." As Jackals said, he was stomping down the quiet hallway for the cafeteria just to see that the coffee machine was flooded with night shift officers.
Jackals counts his queue.
1...
2...
3...
4...
.
.
.
.
36...
"Dammit, alright, no caffeine then."
While he is cussing, the corner of his eyes meets the sight of a woman sitting alone in the cafeteria with a glass of water. She is about 25 years old and has long, straight white hair and black eyes with no shine, just like a dead fish. She only wears the thick coat, all button up with the label "ESOP."
He took a glance, head to toe, to see that her limbs were all covered in matte black, just like him, but one detail caught his curiosity. How the hell is she able to walk on those ice-cold steel floors barefoot?
It's not his business anyway. Thus, Jackals walks away with a cup of tea that he doesn't remember where or when he picked it up.
"Nope, not interested." He threw away the mysterious tea carelessly.
4:58am.
No time. Jackals rush to the colonel's office, avoiding every obstacle with ease. The atmosphere is denser than before, with freezing temperatures and being hard to breathe, kind of like drowning in the ice water.
[Knock.]
[Knock.]
[Knock.]
"Come in," said the digitalized voice of a man.
Open the sliding door; it appears to be the room decorated with various old relics, an old gun, a saber, a medal, et cetera, with some virtual windows behind the desk in the middle. Jackals steps on the red carpet and stands at ease. He stares at the man sitting in a black leather coat with a V-shaped medal on the right of his chest and labeled Col. Walter Jaeger on the left.
"What is it, sir?" Jackals cut to the chase.
"Infiltrate mission, your favorite." Colonel spoke up,
Then tapped on his bracelet twice and opened another holographic monitor. the blue planet, the green continent, and a raging storm, and then he continues his explanation.
"This is Eden-4. It's mostly water, and there are also tons of active volcanoes releasing sulfur dioxide. turning most rivers into ponds of contaminated sour water, about 5.8-4.6 PH, but for Not Your Average Infantryman like you should be fine." Colonel switch the page.
"Another trouble you have to overcome is hostile creatures; we have little intel about them due to their ambush behavior; and lastly, the natives; we have little evidence about them because of the electromagnetic interference and dense forest. I will send you down there to clear the area, then we can send more men to set up the FOB. Any question?"
At the end of the briefing, the colonel turned off his bracelet.
"Why this is a solo mission, sir? No UAV, No squads...Why?" Jackals speak firmly. Colonel remain silence.
"You gonna get this job done, dismiss." Colonel sigh, thus Jackals saluted, then walked out of the room, leaving dust on the red carpet.
Out of the sliding door.
"Another unauthorised mission, innit?" Jackals fed up with colonel's order-
"Make it stop," said the desperate voice of bunch of girl.
Jackals quickly pull out the pistol, just to aim at the empty hallway.
"What the fuck?"
"Elysia, scan the area, and sort out every RHA's personnel." A moment later, the transparent yellow sphere expanded from him.
"I found no additional organism. What happened?" Elysia said it with curiosity.
"Nah, nothing; maybe it's just hallucinations." Jackals shrugged
"Hallucination is a big deal; if you mistreat it, it will interfere with our mission. Running brain diagnose, all extensions are fully functional." Elysia took the matter seriously and found out nothing was wrong either.
Two are confused about what happened but decide to stick to the mission. Walking to the military-railcraft station, he passed many boring virtual flower stands in the same old metallic hallway with some of the officers talking about their morning shift.
[Stomp] [Stomp] [Stomp] [Stomp] [Stomp] [Stomp]
Someone approaches Jackals with high speed; he takes a glance.
187 ms; the sight of a girl about 19 years old with chestnut color and short hair with a small bang. She wore a RHA white shirt carrying a bundle of documents, running head first toward him while wearing high heels. The white she wore indicated that she was a newbie.
192 ms; this collision is unavoidable. Brace for impact, so Jackals thought.
200 ms; a collision occurred. The girl was sent to a full stop immediately and bounced back. Falling on her buttocks, sent hundreds of papers flying everywhere.
150-kg figure looked down on her with glowing eyes. "You good?" She heard the harsh and dry voice of the executioner, who could end her at any moment. Yet, in reality, Jackals just speak normally with a slight smile.
[snap] [snap] [snap] [snap]
She looked lost, unaware of her surroundings. She was shocked by the sight of high-value documents scattered all around her, tear ups just like that. "I...I'm so screwed." Said, sobbing voice.
[snap] [snap] [snap] [snap]
"Hey. Are you there?" Jackals snaps his finger to brings her back to the reality that most of her papers end up stacking, perfect, and organized on the man's left hand.
"?????" The confusing sobber, who didn't know how to react, let out everything in her mind.
"Are you hurt?" Jackals reached out his hand and offered help.
"そうだはないです !" She answered with the language that he is not familiar with, but clearly she's in panic and anxiety. Then the pop-up appears: "That is not true!" few centimeters above her head
"Is that so? then good enough." awkward smile by Jackals. Thus, he forcefully lifts her up by the collar, like a kitten, and puts a document in her hands. [Puff] He leaves.
5:22 am.
The railcraft arrived at a speed of 144 km/h. To the quartermaster department, Jackals walk up to the counter. see the guy with a long beard in the RHA infantry suit, but without armor or a helmet.
"What're ya buyin'?" said the QM.
"That one zombie videogame, aye?" Jackals, both hand-pointing at QM in a funny manner.
"Yeah, been into that recently. For real, what do you want?" QM asks.
"You know me." Jackals nods.
"Say no more." QM walks into the armory for a minute and then back with a large bag.
"We got a rail-rifle chamber in .394 Du, big gun for you, big dawg, some grenades, and lastly, a portable anti-material railgun. But with some spice." QM talks while slapping the bag.
"What spice?" The sentence caught Jackals' curiosity.
"Armor-piercing range skipper." QM leans closer. "You hit what you aim, no leading, no bullet drop." QM chuckled.
"Wish it won't malfunction." Two laugh a lot, then Jackals leave with the back full of weapons and ammunition, estimated at around 175 kg of weight.
Jackals walks back to the railcraft. With the faces of men on duty gazing upon his appearance, he nods. On the ride to his last place, the Magnetic Cargo Catapult Station, or MCCS. Approaching the soulless station, no human is to be seen. His bracelet points at shuttle number 13. How lucky of him.
The 3-meter-tall cylinder is constructed with a thick layer of protection from the space standing tall before Jackals. The depressurized capsule opens its airlocks, sucking air from its surrounding. He, with a small amount of anxiety, toss his weapon bag inside the tiny space between the places his legs should be. Jackals crouch down and step inside the cramped space, uncomfortably. He should deserve better.
Tightening up the seat belt, he lay down on the wall, looking at the monitor in front of his eyes. slowly change color.
[Redirecting power]
Red.
Orange.
Yellow .
Green.
[Ready to launch]
Jackals tense up and clench his fist brace for something.
"Launch." Soon after hearing the word, Jackals experienced 8 times his body weight compressing his back and making it difficult to breathe.
Five...
Four...
Three...
Two...
One...
Acceleration slows down to just 12 m/s2, making the ride less bumpy than the past five seconds. While Jackals were sitting more like laying, and eyes on the monitor displayed the T-shape construction representing the crossbow but instead of compression forces from the limb, utilizing magnetic acceleration to pull composite cable, launching Jackals and his baggage out at an acceleration of 80 m/s^2.
He close his eyes.
.
.
.
Elysia is one of the products of the personal combat assistance program. Developed by the Iron Order Corps, this program has been a success, yet it is very bizarre in some manners because the AIs this program has produced are very intelligent and very adaptable, almost senseless-like.
When the time passes, they will be able to find personalities that match their partner. These AIs can access any available data when needed, locate weak points, and calculate ballistics by using their host brain as their processor, which leads to concerns about soldiers' health. In order to end that concern, R&D set limits on every one of them.
In this case, Elysia only resided with Jackals for 2 months; they still needed to know each other much more than that.