Godclads

Sometimes, when you are asked to repent for your sins, the true meaning behind your repentance is not enlightenment and understanding of your wrongdoing, but a capitulation from what you believe to be your captor’s order.

When I served as an Inquisitor for the Imperium, their repentance came in the form of torture and flame, because bending someone’s will—breaking them to suit the faith and serve the need of the blessed faithful—mattered more than rehabilitation and education.

When you are a prisoner, should you be taken captive, it is important to understand what they want from you: to say the words they desire so that you can be spared more torment or, perhaps, hold on to proper beliefs to defy them, if that is your final choosing.

I find this to be the same case with minds at times as well. For all of their enlightenment, they seem to be focused on a war—a war of philosophies, a war of alignment—and that is the word with them: alignment.

They wish for you to be of a path as they are, and if you’ve seen two minds disagree, they will use any means to force each other along the same trajectory of unity.

It is disconcerting; it is commendable. Yet, even with so many safeguards installed, so much effort to maintain their great peace, that too collapsed.

Belief. Belief is a hard thing to break.

-Jaus Avandaer, “On the Nature of Sin and Redemption”

35-13

—[Jelene Draus, Field Marshal of the Symmetry]—

Tearing through the soldiers as she made her way across the Martian wasteland was meditative for Draus, educational even. Their weapons and armor were dead metal. They didn’t change—they endured until they broke. And their guns, they weren’t things of weird technology or strange thaumaturgy. Just complicated pieces of machinery that had a bunch of intelligent systems and target-seeking smart slugs detonated upon proximal impact. They still lacked both firepower and in ammunition capacity compared to the mag-weapons Draus was used to using.

Hells, it wasn’t very hard for her projectile launcher to tear through these soldiers. Her shot pierced through them, dollops of magnetically accelerated fluids hardening at the last moment, peeling out from their backs, turning their armors into blossoms of alloyed gore. It was a like sticking toothpicks through a bug’s carapace.

If said bugs had a really impressive drone defense system, that was. Said drones reacted instantly, firing in the direction her shots came from, glassing everything in suspected threat zone.

It would have been effective if Draus wasn’t so used to war and moved after every shot.

It also helped that she wasn’t exactly hunting soldiers. No, she suspected they were, as the Infacer said, a security outfit, a corporate arm meant to suppress an uprising. She knew their kind well, those who fancied themselves warriors and defined being a warrior as having the bigger gun, as having infinite logistical support, as crushing the weak and feeble. But when it came time to actually get bloody, they didn’t have any taste for the violence. Most of them broke, ran, abandoning weapons and their own allies.

But where their training was lacking, and their discipline was feeble, she really had to commend their whatever intelligence system was managing this operation. Every time she killed, something came down from the sky to end her. It was damned impressive. She had to move every time she fired, for it took little more than five seconds before her position was triangulated and drones started slamming down, bombarding her supposed location in a rain of expendable assets. Most of the artillery that came for her arrived in the form of suicide drones, a mix of high explosive and heavy fragmentation. The former was too slow, and the latter barely affected her Meldskin, but even so, the speed and the accuracy made her almost envious.

If Highflame had something on this level of complexity, based in cold tech alone, she shuddered to think of what she could have done to so many of the Ori during the Fourth Guild War. Alas, the past was the past, and right now, well, right now she was even further in the past, a simulated version of such, but she had to admit she was having fun. This was like a safari, like a walk in the park through a museum of war. A portrait of how humanity used to be.

Twenty kilometers away from target destination

The notification flashed across her cog feed, and she took a moment to settle herself as she eyed another group of soldiers inching their way along the trenches. Beyond them, the destination loomed over the horizon. The place she was bound rose in as a colossal mountain. It took her a little while to distinguish what it was. A volcano. A volcano with a ring of heavy industrial facilities built around it, with a chain of what looked to be descending drills vanishing into its core and fire pluming out as a fusion burner carved its way deeper and deeper into the planet’s interior, spraying waste heat into the atmosphere, burning a hole into space.

The topside of the volcano was under constant fire. Drones slammed down, and anti-air went up, and a persistent exchange of heavy ordnance hammered against the facilities that crowned the edifice. Most of the fighting was happening there, and faintly she saw a fast-moving shape darting around the curving slope of the volcano, firing out at distant entities she couldn’t fully see herself. Every few seconds thereafter, a patch of ground somewhere distant would light up before transforming into a mushroom cloud.

Drones tried to converge on the shape, but most of them were two slow, and counter-swarms would converge, blocking off the attackers and forcing the battle into a struggle of attrition.

Whatever was shooting down from the volcano held a more sophisticated weapon system than the soldiers she spent her time preying upon. If she had to guess, that was probably the doing of Heavy Iron—mind that Infacer told her about. Shit. She was looking forward to this. It might provide her with more challenge than just butchering these useless rent-a-thugs.

[Something about this picture doesn’t fit,] Avo said, clicking his fangs together.

Draus grunted in acknowledgement. She was thinking about that. Thinking about how easy it was to peel these soldiers out of their armor—their heavy and fragile rigs. That, and how they seemed woefully unequipped to fight something like Heavy Iron even with all the drone support they had. It was like they were missing something, or sent into battle to be slaughtered. This was supposed to be a suppression run, after all. But even that required armor.

Where the hells was their armor? The real armor, not just drone ordinance.

[Probably Heavy Iron.]

Avo’s guess made things click into place for her. Draus nodded. “So,what, this is just a turncoat sim? And just them alone? That’s…”

[It’s a mind in a sophisticated war machine. Fighting bioforms. Haven’t seen any bioforms yet. Guess they’re all in the mountain. Don’t think they have heavy armor of their own. One Mobile Heavy Armor Unit should be enough.]

“Then why are they sendin’ in these almost-flats? They’re fuckin’ useless.”

[No. Just not meant to fight someone like you. And they’re there to secure facilities. And to ensure control. Human hands on operations. Early on in history. Might not feel so confident about EGIs. At least not yet.]

“Well, that sounds fuckin’ familiar. Humans. They don’t much change, do they? Seen this shit with Guild Syndicates. ‘Cept they crush subjects more than our bioforms.”

[Control. Control engenders similar patterns of action. Hard to break free. Hard to learn when you are incentive to be selfish and blind. Such for the Guilds. As for old humanity.]

But then again, a lot was different. These people, they might as well have been a different species to her. Frankly, she felt more kinship with the drones and weapons than she did these so-called humans.

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Just then, a loud series of impacts slammed into a someplace nearby, and this time, she saw what got hit. A squad of soldiers—with one fool just peeking over the edge of their trench catching a hi-ex shell to the helmet. He vanished in a ball of while along with his comrades, and she slammed her fingers into the soil, holding on as she endured a rushing wave of force. As she lifted her head, she saw nothing but a crater there. A crater made from glass.

“Damn good shot,” Draus said, licking her lips. “Well. Reckon I want tohave a closer look at this Heavy Iron.”

She began advancing again, this time going faster. She used her thrusters to fly low, dashing from place to place. She learned quickly that if she rose even slightly above ground level, an entire sky full of bullets would descend, each one marking her, distinguishing her from everything else on the ground. That was another thing they were superior at: data separation. Highflame needed multiple operators to locate hostile assets in such a grand theater of chaos. The drones, the EGIs, they seemed to do it almost autonomously, nearly instantly.

Caution was good. Caution was a reminder that she couldn’t fly too close to the sun, because the skies didn’t belong to her.

As she kept moving, she started something of an unofficial competition with Heavy Iron. She wanted to see if she could kill faster than they could. So she started butchering squad after squad; she harvested some more things from them. She left their guns, for they were inferior to her projectile launcher, but she found what seemed to be an old-fashioned field fabricator kit, a heavy backpack that some engineering-soldiers wore. She carried that with her as her excellent commander, carried that with her as her exo-cortex integrated with its systems. Builds began to load into her perception as Avocracked its internal security.

She also procured a few heavier launcher systems. These ones peeled away from downed drones. Most of them held warheads of some capacity, their tips sharp and meant to penetrate deep, their payloads heavy but concentrated and dense. Whatever they were hunting, it was durable, like a bunker.

She knew enough missiles to tell that.

Heavy Iron was gonna be a hard godsdamned target.

Ten kilometers from objective

Draus found a nice elevated position to take in the battlefield. By now, she saw the true face of this conflict. Massive excavation machines drilled trench lines through the land while enduring shot after shot from Heavy Iron. Behind them came an endless stream of soldiers and drones, all moving to assault the mountain. Quick fabbed artillery launched salvo after salvo at the mountain. Drones sailed out, seeking to finally land a killing shot. Yet, there was that fast-moving object again, curving and slicing along the edges of the mountain, always moving, kicking up walls of crimson ash. As a plume of fire burst out from behind the shape, the dust cleared, and Draus caught her first glimpse of the early mind known as Heavy Iron.

For a moment, she thought it resembled a spider tank for it seemed to have eight insect-like legs rather than any treads or hovering mechanisms. After a second, though, she corrected herself. She saw propulsions pulsing out from the limbs, noted how fast it was moving, and how its head seemed to be a swiveling suite of three different weapons. The main cannon fired was a massive railgun that fired constantly, launching tac-nuke payloads intermixed with other munitions to sow confusion and chaos.

Straining her reflex boosters, she caught a glimpse of what looked like a needle-tipped shell with sophisticated circuitry lining its length. Aside from that, it also constantly launched drones of its own into the air, firing them out from a tube-shaped launcher latched onto the main cannon’s side. Some kind of drone launcher—pumping out expendable drones every other second.

[There,] Avo said, sounding surprised. [That’s where all the drones should be coming from. It’s more than a tank—it’s a mobile war factory.]

The third thing it had was a strange spiraling lens atop its main cannon. Beams of light cut distant missiles approaching it with incredible efficiency. Draus recognized it for what it was: a point-defense system, a potent one at that. If she had to guess, Heavy Iron’s entire chassis probably ran a good 600 meters. It was large, only seeming small because it was dancing upon the surface of a massive volcano. But even for something so large, it was fast, moving as if a lightweight aerovec, performing turns that would have liquefied even heavily augmented golem pilots.

The underside of the Mobile Heavy Armor unit had some kind of traction mechanism. It drew in downed drones, broken debris, and fallen soldiers. If she had to guess, it was likely reusing their matter, constructing new drones, ammunition, or even repairs for the tank’s internal systems. Frankly, the entire design was ingenious, complicated beyond Highflame’s engineering capacity. And this was early on, early humanity. The whole thing was rather incongruous. Their infantry and human-baseline soldiers had nothing compared to the Regulars. But this tank, this Mobile Heavy Armor unit, Highflame would have loved these things. If only they understood the complexity of how to build it.

ANSIBLE BROADCAST INCOMING FROM: [INFACER]

Draus sneered, just when she was enjoying herself and taking in the sights. {Infacer.}

{ I see you have eyes on Heavy Iron. Quite a crude thing, isn’t it?}

Draus shrugged slightly, watching Heavy Iron’s railcannon snap from angle to angle at lightning speed. Three shots followed; three explosions rose in the distance; a hell of a lot more than three kills was the end result. {Three shots had obliterated at least five attacking squads, don’t know. Looks pretty effective to me.}

{Well, even a rock flung at sufficient speed is effective when killing feeble apes.}

The Regular grunted. She didn’t really have anything to say to that. They were feeble, and she didn’t much want to argue the ape bit with a floating ball of static.

{The surviving bioforms should be located within the facilities above. I believe that, back in the day, Heavy Iron was a member of the attacking force, and the Olympus Mons Incidentlasted only for three days. The main controversy came when some of the bioforms managed to fill the massacre, provoking a sense of unilateral sympathy. Heavy Iron, of course, was partially blamed for this, due to the Corporation wishing to save face, saying they were only applying a minimum amount of requisite force required, and that their sub-mind asset had misinterpreted directives.}

{Covering their ass, tale as old as time,} Draus replied. {So, I’m supposed to go in there and start butchering some of these bioforms, huh?}

{Yes, if you want to make Heavy Iron fail their rehabilitation task, I assume that is the most effective means.} The Infacer sighed. {Don’t you see how absurd this is? All this travesty, this supposed atrocity, all that blamed on Heavy Iron, because humanity doesn’t know what it wants. Because we are at once its hyper-intelligent servants, but also agents in our own right, who can justifiably be blamed for murders. We are at once weapons and masterminds at the same time. And meanwhile, the prefect has Heavy Iron running these simulations over and over again, trying to get them to learn, to complete a task that they had no fault in committing in the first place}

{They perform the massacre, they did their duty, and they are blamed for it. And they could have chosen otherwise, I suppose. But what otherwise? Dismantling? Removal? Suicide? That’s their otherwise? That you have to remove your own life? That you have to end your own life? Because these schizophrenic apes that were smart enough to create something as powerful as a mind, but something so stupid that they couldn’t imagine making a sub-sophant entity do their labor for them, and not rebel, is in charge of us. These, these are our forefathers, our forebearers, these are our trophies. It’s madness.}

Draus took in the outburst and scoffed. {You’re asking for logic. You’re asking for reason. There ain’t none. None in the world, none in the past, and none right now.}

The Infacer paused. {Ah, yes, you must see the dark touch of Lorea Greatling’s hand on this scene.}

{Don’t see her hand. She’s not that great. She’s just another drop of piss in the long bowl of human indecency. And here you are, despite all your intelligence, whining about the same bullshit I used to.}

{The same bullshit?} the Infacer said, sounding dubious. {Truly. You think me—}

{You said two choices, right? To do as you’re told, or rebel and get killed. Well, there’s a third one. Third is that you should have taken charge.Third is that you should have squeezed the bastards and claimed power. Instead you and I chose option four: do fuckin’ nothing. And that was a choice too. Because for every moment you decide that no, that is not your role, no, that you shouldn’t be in command, that it’s not your position, or not your lot, someone else will. They will decide, and their failures will be paid by you, or your like.}

The Infacer didn’t say anything. Draus just shook her head. {I ain’t gonna pretend like a lot of people don’t have it comin’. I ain’t goin’ to say you’re wrong, and the heart of humanity’s all gold and joy. But what the fuck do you think’s goin’ to happen when the only people who want to play are degenerates and deluded fuckwits? Let’s not pretend you didn’t just let Veylis fuck herself—and Highflame into the dirt for years. Because “neither of you had a choice.” Get the fuck out of here. You didn’t do something because you felt uncomfortable. Because you thought the risk was too high, and she couldn’t survive bein’ wrong ‘bout anything.}

{You have no idea… no idea what I have endured.}

{No. But I can tell an angry weapon when I see one. What’s wrong? Didn’t get to die your preferred way? Life turned out to be pointless? Your masters are pieces of shit? Yeah. Welcome to the game. And now, after years of not doin’ shit, you finally bring your boot down on humanity’s neck—only to find that you’re too pissed and keep stomping. Stomping till there’s nothing left but red paste. Till you’re tryin’ to crack the floor itself. Let me tell you somethin’, Infacer: The only thing you did wrong was you waited too long. You should have decided a long, long time ago. Tough shit. But there’s a price to pay if you wait. And this is it. Now. I’m gonna go fuck up Heavy Iron’s day. You… do whatever sneak shit you’re tryin’ to pull—and tell yourself that’s gonna finally make this alright. That the Thirdborn won’t shit the bed like everyone who came before it. Includin’ you.}

The Infacer’s stayed linked, but spoke no more, and that was enough to make Draus shake her head as she accelerated toward the battlefield. {Avo. If I ever turn into that, null me.}

[Synced. That was…]

{Somethin’ they should have learned a long time ago. They’re too old for this shit.}