Chapter 2: Hallucinations

Was it all a dream? Could it have been the effects of Metallus exposure? It felt too real at the time. There was nothing there that would have made her think it was all hallucination - all but one thing - evidence.

Cerras Stratbein grabbed the bath towel resting on her head. She had been staring at nothing for quite sometime already inside her room, on her military-styled bed. She looked up, the dull whir of the ceiling fan and the sublte flicker of the flourescent light behind the rotating blades felt strangely hypnotic.

Nothing beats a hot shower after every mission, Cerras told herself. And there's nothing more honestly so in the world. She stood up walked back to the mirror hanging adjacent to her bunk. The mirror wasn't hers, but the last occupant of the room had left it there and as it made the room look slightly bigger, she had retained it. Now she had grown fixated to it, instinctively looking at herself everytime she passed by.

This time though it was somewhat different. She looked at herself - stared at herself - the first time she had done so in years. Her short roughly cut hair was still slightly wet from her bath, and droplets of water trickeled down her face. Her rich blue eyes reminded her too much of her father and her fair complexion that was the eye of all men in her platoon was more of an annoyance to her as it often gave her doublestandard treatment, in a good way - but in a good irritating way. Her wet green tanktop accented hair ligth coloured skin even further - and the scars from past excursions were made more evident.

Here, she said to herself, is Cerras Stratbein, team leader of the 16th division of Guardianus, heir to the Stratbein line, a household name now that the Reengineering wars had already ground to a halt and people were beginning to look for heroes. Her father, a general during the war, it seemed, fit in the vacancy of people to look up to - and she had been tasked with the undue responsibility of living out of the shadow that had been cast by her name.

Forcing the thought out of her mind, she lowered her sights, to her half exposed chest. Something was indeed different from before. Something that made her look into the mirror in the first place. She peered into the mirror, in disbelief. There was a dark spot in the middle of her chest. Did she ever have a mole there? No, it was probably dirt left from the last mission. She tried to flick it off but it wouldnt disappear. She looked at it again through the mirror. It seemed larger now. Cerras squinted. It was growing. Larger and larger. Her eyes became fixated to the dark hole in her chest that she tried to cover up, feeling something she had not experienced in a long time - embarassment. But at what? Her thoughts could only begin to ponder what was happening.

Her heart beat faster and faster.

Cerras fell to her knees and screamed.

Three loud knocks pulled her back to reality. She was standing in front of the mirror - and probably had been standing there for a very long time. There was no hole, no dirt, no mole.

Was it another one of those visions? Cerras breathed heavily. Either she was going mad or the world as she saw it was collapsing around her.

Three more knocks followed. "Lieutenant?" a muffled voice from behind the wooden door seeped in. "Who is it?" she replied with authoritative demeanor.

"It's me, Janice," the voice said. Cerras sat down on her bed and heaved a sigh. "Come on in."

Another girl in a loose white jumpsuit entered. Her long blonde hair appeared tied into a bun knot. Her face looked somewhat less intimidating than Cerras with slightly puffier cheeks and well rounded eyes that are always restive and gave off a calming aura.

"Was it just me or did I just heard a scream inside here? You look pale. Are you sure you're okay?" Janice inspected Cerras from head to toe. "You should know better than walking around all wet like that."

"I just had a minor slip up. Nothing big," Cerras replied. Clearing her throat, she was quick to change subject. "Is simulation practice over?"

Janice stretched out her arms. "Yeah," she said and then yawned. "Those new WA2's can be quite a handful on uneven terrain. I still prefer my good old 'troll'"

Trolls, Cerras still found the term amusing after having grown up around the military combat exoskeletons called War Armors, WA's in military terms or "Trolls" as its users would fondly call them as they looked like weird creatures with heads attached the main body and proportions akin to that of a troll.

Trolls were essentially the single greatest military contribution of the migrating Diaspora from the destroyed planet of Omicron from the end of the Megadeath Era - more than forty years ago. With the integration of Trolls in modern warfare, all previous technology were rendered obsolete - with the agility, response, durability surpassing all of the current weaponry of its time - Trolls managed to rearrange the balance of power in the world overnight.

Piloting such a weapon had been Cerras's ticket to fame. Effortlessly bagging the WA tournament trophy in her academy during her freshman year, she went on to stand undefeated in WA manipulation and had gone to fight successfuly multiple skirmishes on it during the closing years.

"The WA2's are still being tuned to mimic the old model's response behavior," Cerras said half-heartedly, her mind still swimming with what had happened earlier. It had not been hours after they went out on a mission and after a somewhat disastrous end to her last sortie, she now had the problem of hallucinations as well.

Janice walked towards the other end of the room and faced away from Cerras. "Listen," Janice said, her expression much more serious now, "about the mission earlier - "

So much for avoiding the topic, Cerras told herself. Janice probably wanted to hear her side of things apart from the debriefing statement she had managed to make up at the last minute.

"Lock the door," Cerras softly instructed. Janice nodded and covertly slid the lockbarrel into postion.

Somebody else had to know.

Chapter 1: Wishful Thinking

The pealing sound of decending orbital shuttles shattered the serenity of the evening sky above a ruined city. Long red streaks marked the ships' atmospheric descent as their external hulls burned lava red from the reentry. Light coming from the ships illuminated the ghostly outlines of abandoned buildings that dotted the landscape like enormous vertical coffins rising out of fresh soil. Nearer to the ground, marks of streets could be seen here and there, ruined by debris, craters, and collapsed structures. Pockets of fire and smoke appeared sporadic, giving the place a macabre face of violence.

After a few seconds the glow of the orbital shuttles dimmed, revealing a bright metallic finish along their elongated hulls, streamlined fronts and flat bottoms like the landing ship transports of the early nineteenth century. Seemingly in freefall, their speeds tear up the air produce banshee-like screams.

As the shuttles descended closer to the city, loud booming gunfire exploded from within the cavernous cavities of the taller skyscapers. In an instant the guns light up the city in a ghastly festive display of arms. Tracer rounds fill the sky with dotted lines that sway with the direction of the passing ships. Several ships take hits and trail with smoke but they continue on towards the ground.

Just a few hundred feet above the roads, the shuttles ignite retroboosters on each corner of its flat underbelly in short loud bursts. They slow down in their descent and in less than a few seconds they touched down on a rocky clearing just outside of the main clusters of ruins.

Inside one, everything is dimly illuminated by the singular red light lying at the aft of the ship. On each side, rows of buckled marines, faces unrecognizeable by the shadows made by their thick brown helmets with T-shaped openings reminiscent of the days of the Medieval Crusades. Rumbling from outside gunfire reverberate inside with deep bass. Shoom. Boom. Nobody utters a word.

The explosions outside stop. In an instant the red light becomes brighter and it starts spinning to the tune of a deathsiren. Zero hour. The door at the back of the ship swings open in one downward motion and the soldiers march out in two files. Around them, other platoons had already formed, groups of a dozen men neatly aligned in groups - brown body armors thick, padded, uniform. Beside them, the shuttles lay waiting, its side wall emblazoned by a large crest of stars juxtaposed to form one large star. Beneath it, the writings "UNIS FEDERA" is written in bold white characters.

Flares are ejected from the canopies of the landed ships, lighting up the vicinity with crimson glow. More infantry are made visible, their black chrome rifles glistening under the night sky. Beyond them, bright explosions could be seen from within the city just as fast moving unrecognizably fast aircraft flash overhead. The antiaircraft shower died down shortly afterwards.

The rightmost man of each group took a step forward and blew whistles in unison while the rest of the group stomped their feet. Wordlessly they spread out in various formations start marching towards the city.

A man wearing a long wintercoat and kneehigh boots stepped out of one of the shuttles. His seasoned face showed resolve, accented by a long crooked nose that pointed down to dark moustache made darker by the lighting flares. His flat, clefted chin angled down and stuck to his chest, giving him the formidable look of an charging bull. His temple wore whitened sideburns, decorated by a singular earpiece, most probably for military communique.

The man depressed a button behind his earpiece. Static started coming out with faint sounds of gunfire in the background. "Lieutenant Reeves, report in," the man spoke with grunting voice.

"Sir, we're six blocks deep into the main district," the voice at the other end reported. "Pockets of resistance are slowing down movement but we're still on schedule. ETA to the target area is five minutes. Over and out."

The earpiece crackled as teh transmission ended. The general huffed and put on his generals cap. The night wind suddenly grew chilly. He took out a cigar from the backpocket of his coat and placed it in his mouth. As he was lighting it, a strong feminine voice from behind took him by surprise. "I'm surprised you went along with your men for this mission, mon general Stratbein. An officer should not expose himself to unnecessary danger."

The general did not turn to see who he was speaking to, as if he already knew. He opened his mouth, but just as he was about to speak, the voice interrupted. "You're probably here to see it with your own eyes, to check if the rumors are true," the voice said. "Let me confirm it for you, the "

Cigar smoke filled the air as the general clicked his lighter close and slipped it to his sidepocket. His silence was that of agreement.

A faint outline of a lithe feminine figure came from behind, her vinylesque bodysuit shined with the overhead lighting. Her face is concealed by a lowered biker's visor, and with her long curly brown hair, only her moving lips are made apparent. "You've always been the curious of the lot, mon general. Is knowing so important that you risk your life and everything that goes with it?"

"Tell me, Maddonna," The general spoke with smoke coming out of his mouth. "If I'm doing what you think I'm doing, what are you here for? Your kind has no business here."

The lady smiled and started walking away. "We're Diaspora. After Omicron, we only have business where our feet take us. And all roads nowadays it seems, lead back to what you and I seek."

Eerie silence enveloped the city surroundings, with the faint trudging of Madonna's feet the only sound being carried by the wind. The gunfire died down and the night was once again peaceful.

Static echoed across the landing site as the general depressed the button in his earpiece. No response. The general clenched his fists and threw away the half-smoked cigar as he began walking back to his shuttle.

One by one the shuttles lifted off, filling the ground with fine dust from the rocket exhausts. Maddonna watched them fly by her as she sat on the roof of a wheelless pickup truck, the shuttle reflections appearing one by one on her visor's surface.

She smiled and gazed at the city, once again but a dark mound of ruins painted across a starfilled horizon. "You see mon general?" Madonna spoke, as though still addressing the general, "He's back. Combatron is back."