Chapter 1: Briefing

Patterson

“…and now to more recent news,” said the reporter on the TV, as she turned the pages on her dossier.

“Despite numerous inquiries from concerned Sapphirian citizens and other news channels, Fleet Admiral Hsu of the Sapphirian Navy refused to give more concrete details about the happenings on Paks, but assures everyone that the situation in Blackfortress is nothing to be concerned about, and that communications should be back up any day now. For those who are unaware, the city of Blackfortress has been cut off from the outside world following the sudden malfunction of their communications tower. According to unconfirmed reports, the…”

Daniel shook his head on the other side of the table, while he scratched his right shoulder with his robotic left arm.

“I still have a hard time wrapping my head around that,” he said, pointing at the television. “I mean how do you break a comm tower so bad, that it takes more than a week to fix it?”

“Not to mention that it’s Blackfortress,” replied Patterson, still chewing on his food. “The literal center of the mining industry can’t repair a single tower? Seems weird to me…”

“So what’s taking so long then?”

Patterson shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

"Well, then twenty bucks says that it’s a workers' strike.”

“Strike huh?” he said with a chuckle. “You’re on, Schmidt.”

Lieutenant Cole Patterson and Sergeant Daniel Schmidt were both soldiers of the Aftonian Military Corps, and the two have been serving in the 32nd Motorized Division for almost a decade now. Their division had gained quite the reputation over the years, and ever since Patterson took command of Rhino platoon inside the 32nd, that reputation has only increased.

They were currently stationed at one of the military bases in Baldock city, the capital of the Aftonian Empire, where the two of them were enjoying their “delicious” meal in the military base’s battered old canteen. Despite the weird situation in Blackfortress, they were rather relaxed. It wasn’t their problem, at least for now, and they were having lunch anyway. They’d deal with that issue later.

Daniel took a bite from his cardboard meat, and after a valiant attempt at hiding his disgust, he swallowed it. He glanced back at his plate, and a few moments later he put his fork down and sighed.

“I’d kill for a proper steak right now…” he said with a longing voice.

Patterson smiled then looked at Daniel’s left arm. “Don’t you have anything stashed in there?”

“Nah, that compartment is for bottled things only. Bread crumbles would just get inside the servo-motors and make a mess…”

“Speaking of messes, how did your meeting go with your health insurance provider?”

Daniel shook his head and waved at Patterson with his robot arm. It didn’t go well at all.

“Dude, be happy that you have all your limbs.” He said, with obvious frustration.

“Oh, that bad?”

The Uthanian Kingdoms, which were one of the most technologically advanced nations on Azuno, have recently developed a new line of prosthetic arms, and amongst other things they featured nerve stimulators for the fingers. Daniel had lost his arm six years ago during a battle in Grarrak City in Esmos, and while the somewhat outdated model he had received back then still worked well enough, he had been trying hard to get one of the newer models.

His health insurance was supposed to cover the cost of prosthetics, but for some reason, Daniel’s insurance company didn’t want to pay out.

“Yeah, so, apparently this insurance only covers the cost of new limbs, if the person suffered his or her injury more than six years ago.”

“Grarrak was a long time ago. It hasn’t been six years yet?”

“Two months short,” answered Daniel, which he followed with a thumbs up.

“Ouch,” concluded Patterson.

“Ouch indeed…”

Patterson took another bite from his food then spoke up. “It’s honestly amazing that Esmos still finds ways to screw us over after all this time.”

“Yeah… Still, we certainly got out better than Rockfield did.”

Most of the canteen was rather empty. The large wooden tables and benches that littered the building were mostly unoccupied, and the bulk of the kitchen staff had already left half an hour ago. Other than the two of them, the only other people were Privates Ira Cote and Juliette Weiss, who were sitting on a bench at the other end of the room.

This changed, however, when all of a sudden Corporal Thomas Norton busted through one of the doors, followed by Private First-Class Nick Becket. The two had to take a few moments to catch their breaths, which Norton followed with a burst of heartful laughter.

“Fastest guy in the squad my ass!” he exclaimed, as he wiped the sweat off from his forehead.

Nick straightened out his short blonde hair and looked at Norton with a look of disbelief in his eyes. “How the hell do your run like that, fat-man?!”

“Fat-man?! That’s Corporal fat-man for you, private!” retorted the dark-skinned soldier.

“If you had a bit more weight, you wouldn’t have made it through the doorway!” Nick said, nodding at the entrance.

“Neither one of you can keep up with me!” shouted Cole to his two squad-mates. “…now stop arguing and sit your asses down here!”

Norton, also known as North by his friends, patted Nick on the back and the two walked towards Patterson’s table. Nick waved at the two women at the other end of the room and sat down next to Patterson, while North took a seat next to Daniel. He was still breathing heavily.

“What’s with the running?” asked Patterson.

“Well,” started Nick. “Corporal Fat-man here wanted to prove that he was a better runner than I am,”

“…which I just did, by the way.”

“…which he did, but it was only because my legs are still sore!”

“Oh please,” answered Daniel as he rolled his eyes. “why would they be sore? All you did in the past two days was avoid work and munch on food,”

He then turned towards the kitchen area on the right side of the canteen. “…food, that doesn’t taste like cardboard I might add!” he shouted, trying to get the attention of one of the remaining cooks.

“You know how much work it takes to avoid work?” asked Nick. “Because let me tell you, it takes a lot.”

North and Nick were both part of Rhino platoon lead by Patterson. Nick had only joined a year ago, but North was serving his fourth year now, and during his time in the unit he and Daniel became fast friends.

The word “serving” meant two things in North’s case though, since he was sentenced to 30 years of forced military service following a rather serious crime. He never really talked about it to anybody, which included Cole, but he didn't bother North about it. Patterson had plenty of things in his past that he wanted to forget about, and he understood that North wanted to do the same.

As Daniel and North were discussing something food-related, Patterson felt something vibrate in one of his pockets. He quickly pulled out his rectangular wrist terminal and saw the red icon that notified him of an urgent message. “Priority message,” said Patterson to his squadmates.

The three soldiers quickly stopped talking, and Patterson played the audio message. Captain Leonard Kingsley appeared on his screen.

“Cole, come to the main floor of the command center as soon as you can. We may have a situation.”

Patterson blinked at the screen, then looked at his unfinished plate. “Damnit…” he sighed as he grabbed his plate and emptied its contents into a nearby bin.

“Should we come as well?” asked Nick.

“Well if you want to sit through a boring meeting…”

“Okay, never mind!” he replied hastily.

Patterson chuckled, and then he walked out of the canteen towards the admin building.

*

With Baldock being the capital city of Aftonia, it needed to be heavily defended at all times. The city had three different military outposts, with the one located on the outskirts of the city being the biggest. Patterson was currently in the smallest one inside the city center, so it was only a short walk to the command center from the canteen.

As he walked there, he crossed paths with a Sapphirian mechanic, who hastily continued her way to the motor pool after a quick salute. Cole noticed that she was carrying a bunch of shiny cylinders in a box. He figured that they were either vehicle parts or gauss ammunition for the heavier vehicles.

Reaching the command center, he immediately made two observations. The first was that for some reason absolutely nobody was working on the first floor even though it was only three o’clock in the afternoon. The second thing was that the doors leading to the staircase were left wide open, which meant that somebody had dashed up to the next floor in a hurry. He decided to follow that person’s example, and after he took off his beret and straightened his short black hair, being careful to not touch the old scar on the top of his skull, he jogged up the stairs.

Captain Leonard Kingsley from the Aftonian Special Forces and Captain Ronald Brown from the 4th Sapphirian Marine Division were already waiting for him right in front of the staircase. Kingsley was wearing his black and grey uniform along with his signature black beret, while the Sapphirian captain was wearing the standard light-blue uniform of their Navy. Both of them were in their early forties, though Brown’s beard probably made him look older than he actually was.

Patterson saluted both of them, then spoke up. “Captains.”

They both saluted back, and Captain Brown stepped forward and shook hands with Patterson. “Captain Ronald Brown, from the 4th.”

“Lieutenant Cole Patterson, 32nd. It’s good to finally make your acquaintance, sir.”

“Same to you, Lieutenant. I heard many good things about the 32nd, and Rhino in particular.”

Patterson nodded with a smile, and then quickly looked over to Captain Kingsley. “What’s going on, Leonard?”

Kingsley scratched his blonde mustache, then spoke up in his usual hoarse voice. “Emergency meeting. Don’t know much more than that, but I think it’s best if we head inside.”

Patterson nodded, and he followed Kingsley and Brown into a meeting room at the northern end of the hall they were in. When he stepped inside, he immediately straightened himself out.

General Isaac Thompson, the Commander in chief of the Aftonian Military Corps was standing there, along with Major Troy Jefferson, who was also known as the “Imperial Butcher” for his actions in the Grarrak City invasion. Two legendary soldiers of the AMC were standing right in front of him, and Patterson felt quite anxious all of a sudden.

The general was discussing something on the phone, so Major Jefferson greeted Patterson first.

“Been a long time, Lieutenant,” he said as they shook hands.

“Indeed. Almost six years I think?”

Something similar to a smile appeared on the Major’s dark and scarred face. “Seems a lot less for me. How are the others from our unit?”

“Most of them got transferred over the years. Daniel and Dresden are still there, and Rockfield still doesn’t want to wake up from coma.”

The Major looked away for a few seconds as if he was trying to find the right words for something. He did not say anything in the end, and instead, he went to talk with Captain Brown about something.

About half a minute had passed before General Thompson finished his phone call with a Sapphirian Admiral, who Patterson assumed was Fleet Admiral Hsu, one of the highest-ranked officers in the Sapphirian Navy. Sapphiria used to be part of the Aftonian Empire for quite a long time, but following the Separation War, they became an independent state. The two nations harbored good relations despite the separation, and they conducted numerous joint military operations since then.

However, the fact that two high ranking officers of the two nations had to discuss something so important, that they had to clear out not just the room but the whole command center beforehand was quite unusual.

The general put the phone down and walked towards Patterson and the other officers. After a quick salute, he waved at the others to take a seat at the meeting table, and once everyone found their place he spoke up in a rather formal and direct tone.

“Excuse me for the wait, but certain recent developments required me to coordinate with Admiral Hsu.”

Patterson’s guess was right. He didn’t know if he felt better or worse now.

“Now, I am sure you are all wondering why I scheduled this meeting on such short notice.”

“This is about Paks, isn’t it?” asked Patterson, interrupting the general. He managed to throw him off balance for a moment, but the man didn’t seem to mind it.

“Indeed. We received some… troubling reports from a citizen inside the city.”

Captain Kingsley raised his head. “How is that possible, General? I thought their GCSA tower was offline.”

“The tower isn’t the only connection they have to the rest of the world,” replied Captain Brown. “Parts of the old Intercontinental Communications Network remained in Blackfortress in case the GCSA communications got cut. The ICN transmitters connect most of the island, and they also have a direct connection with Stormford, but due to their age the system is very unreliable these days.”

“Well… props to the Engineers who built it.” Kingsley said.

Major Jefferson leaned forward from his chair. “Do we know why they waited so long to contact us?”

General Thompson looked down to the ground for a moment. “From what Hsu told me, it appears that the message was sent two days after we lost contact with Blackfortress, but due to the damage the ICN line has suffered over the years, the message took this long to arrive.”

Patterson blinked. “Five days? That’s quite the delay.”

“And more than enough time for things to go south I’m afraid,” Thompson added.

“As I said, it’s old tech,” explained Brown with a shrug before turning to the general. “So, what did the message say?”

He pressed a few buttons, and the delayed message began playing. There was a lot of static, which made parts of the message unclear for Patterson.

“This is Riley M… calling from B… ress. The city… attacked by a group of… been unable to identi... They are h… armed, they outnumber us… to one, and… access to SAMs. The city––”

“Riley, g… down!!”

“Send r…. ments ASAP!”

The message ended with the sound of a loud explosion.

Patterson stared blankly at the computer for a few moments, as his heart was beating faster and faster. He slowly looked around the room and noticed that the hardened Captains and the Major all looked distressed, with Kingsley looking outright terrified.

“Shit… If someone took Blackfortress over…” started Kingsley

“…then there’s no taking it back,” finished Jefferson.

Brown raised his head. “I wouldn’t give up just yet. Every base has a weak point, we just need to find it.”

Kingsley lowered his eyebrows. “Captain, we’re talking about Blackfortress here! The whole city was built up from the first brick to be an oversized military base, and in recent years its defenses have only gotten better and bigger. If the enemy spent five days there undisturbed, you can bet that they entrenched themselves!”

Patterson looked at his old Captain in disbelief. Kingsley was always the kind of person who charged in headfirst into every engagement, and now he was advocating for caution?

“King, what’s gotten into you? You would normally volunteer to charge the front gate in these situations.”

“Not when it’s goddamn suicide!”

Jefferson turned towards Kingsley. “It’s only a suicide mission if we make it into one. We could probably get to the island and into the city undetected with a small strike team.”

“Well we certainly can’t use ships or submarines for that purpose,” Brown explained. “Paks has coastal artillery set up all over the shores.”

“The message mentioned SAMs as well,” Patterson started “…so helicopters and dropships are off the table too.”

The five officers sat still for a few moments before General Thompson spoke up.

“What about gliders? Most SAMs rely on heat-seeking missiles or visual targeting. If we used gliders at night, we could land at the outskirts undetected.”

Captain Brown sat still as he thought about the idea and then nodded in agreement. “If we don’t want to send a full invasion force, then that’s probably our best option. That said, it’s a bad option.”

“Agreed,” added Jefferson. “We would be able to scout the city, and with luck, reestablish communications. The problem I have however is that our forces would go in blind, with no hopes of calling for reinforcements until we managed to make a dent in their forces, which we know nothing about.”

Thompson nodded, then looked at Patterson. “What do you think Lieutenant?”

“I agree with the Major. Gliders are probably the best way for us to get in there, but once we land, we’re not much better off than the residents. Honestly, it could very well end up being another Grarrak city…”

Kingsley nodded in agreement. “My thoughts as well. Going in blind is never a good idea.”

Patterson, Kingsley, and Major Jefferson all took part in the Invasion of Grarrak city during the rebellion in Esmos six years ago, and all three of them had lost allies on that day. Patterson took it especially hard since one of his closest friends gave his life for him on that day. Cole did not want to repeat that.

“I understand your concerns,” Thompson started “…but we have awfully few options here, not to mention that the longer Blackfortress is under the control of an unknown enemy, the riskier and harder its liberation will be.”

Patterson shook his head and sighed. “I guess it’s now or never, right? I’ll go and round up the 32nd…”

“Don’t,” said Jefferson suddenly.

Kingsley and Patterson both looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“This operation will require special planning, and since we can only bring a select number of people, we’ll need a hand-picked unit,” Jefferson explained.

“That’s right.” agreed Thompson. “Jefferson and I will discuss the exact details of the operation, while Brown and Kingsley round up the soldiers we’ll need,”

“And what about me, sir?” Patterson asked.

“Get Norton, Schmidt, and Corporal Hopkins, and make a comprehensive list of everything that we need from the armory for the mission. Gear, weapons, munitions, specialized equipment, everything…” the general explained. “And pick wisely, because you won’t get a resupply over there,”

Patterson nodded, and after he saluted Thompson, he walked towards the door.

“And Lieutenant,” Thompson stated. “…there is one thing you should know.”

Patterson quickly turned back towards the general. “And that thing is…?”

“We can’t let the public know how serious the situation is, at least not yet, and we need to limit the number of people who know about this mission. Since Staff Sergeant Nichols was the one who caught the message in the first place and she has pilot training, she’ll be one of the pilots most likely.”

Patterson tensed up when he heard the Sergeant’s name. The general probably knew about their… disagreements.

“I’ll… try my best to not make that into an issue, sir.”

“Appreciate it. Dismissed, Lieutenant.”

Patterson saluted once again and walked out of the meeting room. Once he closed the door, he let out a deep sigh and walked down the stairs to the first floor. He did not hate Staff Sergeant Karla Nichols, especially since she already saved his butt during a battle at Klosaap island while Patterson was still just a private, but the two of them did not part on good terms. At all.

Not the time for grudges thought Patterson. He was tasked with gearing up his team for a mission against an unknown enemy, which meant that he had to prepare for basically anything and everything. Luckily, he had help with this task.

When he stepped inside the canteen again, he saw North and Daniel arm wrestling, with Nick and James watching over them.

“Getting tired, Corporal?” asked Daniel with a smug smile on his face.

“Tired? I could do this all day Sarge!”

Since North was going up against Daniel’s robo-arm, it was obvious who would win.

Cole’s guess turned out to be right about five seconds later when Daniel sneakily activated the overdrive on his arm and slammed North’s arm down so hard that the poor man fell out of his seat.

Nick and James gave applause to Daniel, who in turn stood up and took a bow. “Thank you, thank you! I’ll be here all day!” he exclaimed before he turned back to Norton and helped him up.

“Well… at least we know these things are overpriced for a reason,” remarked North.

Patterson quickly walked up to his squad-mates before somebody else would get beaten by the Sergeant.

“Hey LT! You came here to get your arm broken too?” asked Private James Crawford, the newest member of Rhino.

“Nope, I came to tell you to gear up and pack some cardboard, because you may be called for a special operation this evening.”

The good atmosphere of the canteen suddenly turned into a rather serious one, and the smiles disappeared from everyone’s faces.

“We’re going somewhere?” asked Nick.

“We are. Danny, North, I’ll need your help with picking the exact things we’ll need because we most likely won’t get any resupplies on this one.”

Daniel nodded. “Right, we don’t want to encumber ourselves.”

Nick suddenly raised his head. “Waaaait a second… we’re not going to Blackfortress, are we? Because I don’t know of any other places where we would be needed right now…”

He managed to hit the nail right on the head, but Patterson wasn’t surprised. As inexperienced and undisciplined Nick was, he had a rather sharp mind.

“We are, actually.”

Daniel and North looked at each other for a moment, then back at Cole. Neither one of them seemed particularly happy.

“Shit. We’ll need bigger guns if we want to retake that place,” said North.

“Or at least a way to disable the automatic defenses from a longer range. I’d rather not mess with those turrets up close…” Daniel added.

“We can probably find both of those at the armory, but Thompson asked me to find a certain Corporal Hopkins as well. Anyone knows who that is?”

Nick looked at Patterson. “The new girl? She’s a Sapphirian Mechanic from the 4th who got here with Captain Brown.”

She was probably the soldier Patterson had run into earlier on his way to the command center.

“Right. Know where she is?”

“I think I saw her going towards the garages,” replied James.

“Great. Let’s go then.”

Nick raised his hand. “Uh, what about us two, Cole?”

“Just grab your gear for now and prepare to move out. Kingsley is in charge of hand-picking the soldiers, so I think it’s a safe bet that you two are coming.”

Both privates seemed happy to hear that they weren’t left out.

“Remind me to thank King later on!” Nick said.

“Will do. Also, Nick, bring that tracker gun of yours with you! I think we’ll be able to get some use out of that thing finally.”

Nick nodded, and he along with the others quickly emptied their uneaten food into the nearby bin, then stood at attention.

“All right Rhino,” exclaimed Patterson. “Let’s move out!”