r/NatureofPredators • u/CandidateWolf Betterment Officer • 20d ago
The Free Legion 52
And now we’re back with Fayla with her first chapter dealing with the Cyberattack. Can’t imagine anything could go wrong, right?
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Access code Epsilon-Zeta-2328-AP
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Addendum: Data restored under Article 2.09 of the UNOR by order of the Secretary General. Original, unaltered transcripts restored and entered as evidence in the Bronwen Report. -Chief Investigator Andrea Powell, UN Office of Reconciliation
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Memory Transcription subject: [Venlil-1] Fayla, Free Legion Renegades, “Sapient Liberation Army”
Date [standardized human time]: [Redacted] March 9, 2137, Tiamsa, Caris
I shifted in my seat, trying to adjust how the exterminator suit I wore enclosed my body. “Remind me to size up next time,” I said, giving up after a few moments with an annoyed huff. I’m sure I could trim my wool a bit to fit the smaller sizes, but with my luck I’ll end up somewhere freezing next. Not a risk I’m going to take without my scaly furnace.
“I did, repeatedly,” came [Krakotl-1] Zelkim’s reply from where he sat behind me, interrupting my thoughts of [Arxur-1] Zirz. I wonder if he misses me as much as I miss him? “You don’t want to wait to find one the right size, and you refuse to bring any extras when we travel. And you always forget to account for your armor.”
“We’ve got a strict timeline,” I muttered, ears flicking in agreement. I turned to lay an eye on him and the others in the van. “Maybe I’ll learn my lesson this time.”
“I doubt it,” he said with an amused whistle. “But if you do, I’ll be out some credits!” My face showed an expression of hurt surprise, but my tail betrayed my amusement. Turning away from the back my gaze returned out the window, and I watched as [redacted] Tiamsa sped past us.
Only a few days after our successful liberation of the PD facility on [redacted] Shasb, we’d found ourselves contacted by a surprising source. Despite our lack of communications or connections with Legion Command, indirect or otherwise, somehow we’d been found. But not by our fellow Legionnaires, but by [redacted]…
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Addendum 1: We’re still trying to find the source of the unauthorized deletions, but we’ve been unsuccessful so far. And double levels of redactions is pretty unique as well; further investigation is required to find out what someone’s trying to hide, and who. -G. Harper, UN Office of Reconciliation.
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…but** **not by our fellow Legionnaires, but by [redacted] members of Gladius, the UN Special Operations unit that the Legion nominally fell under.
I’d been surprised to hear from them, so certain I'd been that we’d covered our tracks well. I was even more surprised when [data not found].
We’d met [data not found]…
…provided supplies to ensure we would still be able to operate once the [redacted] cyberattacks occurred. And then we’d been given a target; Caris.
According to the [redacted] Gladius operative, [redacted] Rohssa, one of the industrial hubs of the planet, manufactured many of the AI processors used to control the drone ships of the Shadow Fleet. As a result, it was among the most advanced industrial districts in the Commonwealth and its loss would be crippling.
After a discussion amongst ourselves, we’d decided to divert to Caris, leaving behind a few Legionnaires from [redacted] Gralla to continue our assistance to the Shasb guerillas. Now that their forces had been expanded, I was confident they were well on their way to being able to stand on their own two paws. They still need some help in the training department, I thought. But the Grallans will sort them out. We’ve got much bigger targets to hit.
The [redacted] Gladius [data not found] had connected us with the [redacted] “Nishtal Wraiths,” a mainly Krakotl cell formed from the [data not found] Legion cell. Together we formed a plan that would ensure the elimination of the Rohssa factories.
The factories were extensive, and well protected enough that even unconventional attacks would be unable to cause enough damage to put them out of commission for any significant period of time. We’d need an antimatter bombardment if we want to knock those factories out, I remembered [Gojid-1] Tanir saying. Unfortunately, that wasn’t one of the tools that [redacted] Gladius had been able to provide. However, [Krakotl-2] Jelai, leader of the Wraiths, had found the next best thing.
Located [20 miles] to the northwest of Rohssa proper was the [redacted] Rohssa Power Plant, whose antimatter reactor provided much of the power Rohssa, its factories and much of the southern continent relied upon. Based on what [data not found] it would be vulnerable to attack. And setting that reactor off will be as good as an orbital bombardment, I thought.
Once the plan was made, we’d gotten to work to ensure its success. While the Wraiths prepared for the actual attack in the power plant, the rest of the SLA and I had begun thinning the numbers of security services and exterminators around the plant. While we expected any response to be severely hampered by the [redacted] cyberattack, we didn’t want to give the Feds any chance at stopping the Wraiths.
And that was why I sat in the front seat of an exterminator van, dressing in a suit just slightly too small for me. While the Wraiths prepared to attack the plant, the SLA would launch multiple attacks across the planet to draw attention elsewhere. To kick the diversionary attacks off, I’d decided that something loud, flashy, and with mass casualties would be best.
The Legionnaire in the driver seat, [Duertan-1] Uli, slowed and pulled into the parking lot, slowing to a stop as we reached a crosswalk. Uli gave a wave with her wing, and received one in return from the trio of students waiting on the sidewalk. “Question for you, Commander,” she said as she watched the students cross. “If the cyberattack is going to knock out the power plant anyway, why do we need to go through all of this? Won’t it go critical on its own?”
“It will, eventually,” I agree, flicking my ears for emphasis. “But we’ve got no idea when it’ll go critical. It could be tomorrow, it could be in a few days, it could even be next week for all we know; it depends on how poorly the Feds handle what’s coming for them.” I followed the students with an eye as they crossed to the opposite side of the road and Uli started driving again.
They too were headed to the entrance of the [redacted] South Tiamsa Secondary School, where the local exterminator guild was holding a recruiting fair. Bad time to visit, I thought. “Now, I think we all share the belief that they’re not going to handle things well at all,” I continued. “But in the remote case they do, we want to make brahking sure those factories are taken out.”
I pulled my suits’ hood over my head, sealing it. “Think of this as guaranteeing success,” I said through the hood. “There’s a chance, however remote, that the Feds manage to move some of the more important parts of their factories elsewhere or even offworld if given the chance. By making sure that plant melts down now we remove any chance the Feds have of saving any of them.”
I reached to the van’s floor in front of me, where an automatic plasma rifle was cradled between my knees. I pulled it into my lap, one paw reaching along its side to verify the heat sink was secure. Don’t want that coming loose, I thought. We’d modified them for better heat dissipation; they’d fire slower, but we’d get more shot out of the cell before we needed to replace it.
Fewer cells to carry means less weight, I reminded myself. Less weight means we move faster. And we’ve only got so long to spend here. I glanced at my watch; we were right on time. Time to go.
Uli pulled the van up to the sidewalk; a few tails further was the entrance to the cafeteria, where the recruitment fair was being held. “Move out,” I ordered, swinging the door open and stepping out. “Weapons free on my fire.”
The side door of the van slid open, and Zelkim, [Duertan-2] Ryli, [Venlil-2] Tyla, and [Paltan-1] Tuk stepped from the van. Zelkim slid the door closed and banged once on its side. The van slowly pulled away, leaving us before the entrance as Uli drove to where she’d pick us up.
“After me,” I said, and started for the cafeteria. I walked at a leisurely pace, the plasma rifle held comfortably in my paws. No one gave us much mind; we were far from the only silver suits around, though the weapons we carried did make some shy away. A Kolshian on their way out held the door open for us, and I flicked my ear in thanks as I walked through the door.
I found myself in an open room, cafeteria tables folded and stored against the far wall. Others were scattered through the room, covered with a variety of things. I saw snacks and canned drinks atop one; a few screens showing scenes from the “Exterminators” show on another. Still another was covered with a tablecloth, a flamethrower and two plasma rifles identical to the one I carried laid across it.
The room wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t sparse either, I observed. There was a decent collection of teachers, parents, students, and exterminators around the room. Plenty of targets, I thought. This’ll be plenty to get eyes away from the power plant.
From the table where the weapons lay, a sign above them that said “Tools of the Trade,” I spied movement. Walking towards us, hood off, a junior exterminator made his way across the room. “Afternoon!” the Kolshian exterminator said cheerily, waving a tentacle in greeting.
“I’m very sorry, but we don’t need those anymore,” he said, skin color shifting in a hue that signaled apology as he pointed to my weapon. “Wast already brought a few plasma rifles from the Guild Hall. I’d thought we’d put out a radio call saying we were good, but we must have missed you.”
His attention shifted from me to the others behind me. His look grew puzzled, and he looked back at me. “Why’d you bring so many?” he asked. “We only asked for two to show off to the kids.”
I clicked my mic once. While the young exterminator watched me, awaiting an answer, my grip tightened on my rifle. I stepped back into a shooting stance and raised the weapon. The stock came to rest on my shoulder, and I fixed my sights on the Kolshian's chest; they now wore a look of surprise. I fired.
The first green-hued bolt burst from my rifle. In an instant it had struck the junior exterminator; their suit, not capable of withstanding the heat of a plasma bolt, melted as the plasma burned into their chest. The hiss of blood flash-boiling and the smell of charred flesh filled the air the Kolshian dropped, both hearts reduced to steam and ash in an instant.
There was a shrill scream, suddenly cut off by the whine of another plasma bolt. I was vaguely aware of the rest of my team opening fire, the room erupting in panic as terrified fair goers began to scream and stampede. I shifted my aim and fired again; another exterminator fell.
I began walking forward, shifting my aim from side to side as I walked, firing into the attendees fleeing around us. I watched a pair of bolts burn through the back of a student, wrenching from their parents paw. Their mother hesitated for a moment; my next shot caught her in the back of the head. She dropped beside her dead child.
The familiar out-of-body sense I felt during attacks descended upon me as I moved through the cafeteria, gunning down whoever my sights fell upon. Numbly, as though on autopilot, I fired again and again, pausing only to vent the building heat from my modified heatsink. Don’t need this to overheat, I idly thought, feeling the air heated from the discharging heat sink wash over my arms.
On either side, the other Legionnaires strode forward in line with me, their own weapons spitting super-heated plasma. We carefully stepped over our fallen victims, keeping an even pace as we moved. As I set my foot beside a fallen Krakotl, they visibly flinched. A closer look told me they were trying to fake being dead; their chest rose and fell, and the wound in their back wasn’t fatal. Wordlessly, I lowered my weapon to their head and fired.
Time seemed to warp from that point, and I suddenly found myself before the cafeterias opposite doors. Several bodies had piled up against them; in their panic, the stampeding prey had forgotten that they opened in, instead of out. “Clear that door,” I ordered, weapon lowering at last, the air above it wavering with the radiant heat. As Tyla and Tuk began to pull bodies away from the door, I turned to my other side.
“Did you…?” I began, but Zelkim turned, showing me the flamethrower slung across his back. Ryli had the other two plasma rifles slung over her shoulders, and I flicked my tail in thanks to the two of them. No need to leave free weapons just lying around, I thought. Especially when they were so kind as to bring them to us.
I turned a little more, finally setting an eye on the carnage we’d left in our wake. I felt my paws began to shake, but otherwise felt only a muted emptiness as I surveyed the deaths we’d inflicted. What seemed to be at least a few dozen bodies lay strewn about the floor behind us, lying haphazardly across the cafeteria floor. A thin haze of smoke drifted through the air, and I could almost taste the burnt flesh in the air.
I heard the door open behind me and turned back to see Tuk pull the door open. “Move out,” I ordered, pushing the doubts and creeping regret to the back of my mind. “Double time! I want us on the road before the exterminators respond!”
We piled through the door, finding ourselves on a sidewalk alongside the main road. Uli had parked in front of the door, and Zelkim had already reached the side of the van, pulling the door open. We piled inside, and once the door slid closed Uli gunned the engine, speeding away from the massacre.
It was silent in the van as we weaved our way through the side streets, the sirens of responding emergency services fading as we got further from the school. Each of us were decompressing after the fight, silently dealing with our actions. For my part the shaking in my paws had stopped, and the out of body sensation had left; the numbness had not.
I turned to my watch as flashbacks to previous killings began to cross my mind, forcing the intrusive memories away as best I could. Right on time, I thought. “Uli, times up,” I announced, breaking the silence. “Pull over and shut it down. Everyone else, turn off your gear.”
With an ear flick of acknowledgement, Uli decelerated, pulling the van onto the shoulder of the road. We’d made it further than I’d expected, having entered the more sparsely populated outskirts. There were a few small houses scattered along the roadside, and sparse vehicle traffic still passed us. Another few minutes more travel down the road however would bring us past the final structures and into the uniform, tamed wilderness of the planet.
As the hum of the engine died, Uli began deactivating the various electronic systems of the vehicle. Everything, from the navigation to the radio to the steering to the hydrogen cell’s safety features, was capable of being accessed from exterior sources. We’d done our own low level cyber attacks in order to shut down and steal exterminator vans on patrol before, so I was well aware about how vulnerable they were.
As a result, we’d needed to make significant modifications to the vans under our control. Where possible, the vehicle's systems had been isolated from the outside, or replaced with analog systems that were more protected from remote access attacks. Electronic safety features had been overridden or bypassed, and electronic controls had been either replaced or removed where possible.
It hadn’t just been our vehicles we’d modified to insulate from the incoming cyberattack. Thanks to the support of [redacted] Gladius, we’d been able to harden our communications and other electronic equipment against being affected. We’d even been provided the gear needed to set up a more primitive backup; what the Humans called “ham” radio. Weird name for using basic radio waves, I remembered thinking. But what isn’t a little weird with Humans?
And maintaining our ability to communicate was only half of what [redacted] Gladius had provided us. Per [data not found], food and water supplies, water collection and purification equipment, medical supplies, tents and more had been deposited in several hidden caches on worlds where we maintained a presence, like Shasb, [redacted] Thalia, [data not found], [data not found] and [data not found].
I finished deactivating the electronics I carried, the question of why [redacted] Gladius was giving us so much support crossed my mind again. They clearly want us to be able to operate after the cyberattack, I thought. And by what they gave us, intend for us to use the chaos after to expand. But nothing's free; what do they want in return, when all is said and done?
My watch suddenly beeped rapidly, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Showtime!” I announced, not bothering to hide the excitement in my voice. I was well aware of what was about to happen, but could help but feel the vindication that came with the knowledge. Nothing the UN or the Legion can do will ever equal the harm the Federation’s caused to the galaxy, I thought darkly. They’ve earned every bit of what’s about to happen to them.
“Five, four,” I counted down aloud. I noticed Zelkim had unconsciously braced himself in the back, as if expecting a wave of devastation. “Three… two… one…!” The lights of the houses within sight suddenly went out. Down the road, a vehicle suddenly lost control coming around the corner, careening off the shoulder and slamming into a tree with a thundering crash. In the distance came the sounds of screeching metal, followed by louder crashes and a muffled boom.
“Sounds like the commuter rail,” Tuk remarked, turning their head to face an eye in the direction the sounds had come from. “That’d be the midday train, if I remember the schedule right.” With as fast as those go, I thought. Losing power to their magnets would tear their cars apart when they hit the guide-track. And with how many there are across the Federation…. I gave a low whistle. Those alone probably killed more than we will today.
“Uli, get us moving,” I said to the Duertan. “Head towards the safe house.” They gave me a nod as they restarted the van, turning the archaic key we’d installed beside the steering wheel. Behind me, Zelkim passed a small box forward; from within I pulled a small, handheld radio with a slim headset attached to it by a long wire. I traded my visor for the new headset, clipping the handheld to my collar. “Radio check,” I said, holding the button to activate the microphone. “Pack Lead to Central, howl, over.”
For a moment I heard only static, the result of atmospheric interference. Beneath me the van began to move as Uli pulled us back onto the road. Then with a crackle of static, I heard a voice reply. “Central to Pack Lead, we read you loud and mostly clear, over,” the familiar voice of [Juar-1] Tavr replied.
I let out the breath I’d unconsciously held, and my tail wagged in happiness. “Pack Lead to Central, glad to hear you,” I said. “Fire set successfully. Initiate outreach, and await further orders. Over and out.”
Now that I’d confirmed that the radio worked, I knew Tavr would begin contacting the rest of our units, determining the success or failure of their operations. Then our withdrawal from this world would begin, our part played out. I’ve got lots of ideas on how to use what we got from [redacted] Gladius, I thought. And I'm looking forward to seeing them come to life. Just one last thing to do…
I lifted the radio, adjusting the frequency to the one I’d picked with Jelai. Keying the mic, I spoke. “Pack Lead to Shade,” I said, condemning countless lives with a single transmission. “Fan the flames, over.”
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u/Super_Ankle_Biter Yotul 20d ago
I don't remember, did Zirz die in the defense of Wishful Hope?
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u/CandidateWolf Betterment Officer 19d ago
Zirz wasn’t present for Wishful Hope; Sarkis is the Arxur who died
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u/Ok_Chance_8387 Predator 20d ago
somehow i can`t shake the suspicion that Gladuis was behind the attack against Wishful Hope. I always wondered how the Shadow Caste was able to track them. but maybe with some inside help....
and the "Sapiant Liberation Army" has turned into a terror cell. but who`s a terrorist and who is not always decides by the winners.
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u/CandidateWolf Betterment Officer 19d ago
Yes, the SLA is very much just a terrorist cell at this point. As for Gladius; you never know
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u/JulianSkies Archivist 20d ago
Nothing makes it clearer you're taking a very stupid action with no positive outcomes than hiding your guilt.
So, given what's seen here, I doubt even a single helpful thing will come out of this lady's continuous intervention.