(5)
“Sir I think you need to see this.” Ellis was informing Ramirez. Ramirez started to say something when he noticed the look upon Ellis face.
“What’s wrong?” Wexler asked Ellis.
“Look at this and tell me what you see?” Ellis mentioned to Wexler.
“Cipher of Id (a.k.a. Kronos) in it’s neutral state.” Wexler mentioned looking perplexed.
“What!?” Ramirez almost shouted. When Kronos is in it’s neutral state the virus within it is not functioning and the code is not consisting randomizing itself. Although it’s not pure randomization, but because it is multiple code groups that can randomize any text, and each code group is thus different, and combine with the fact that it also uses junk (that can be randomize as well) it is near impossible to break it. In it’s neutral state it is there to teach people how it functions all in an effort to improve any technology, or test any technology, to Skotadi likening.
“Do you have any ideas as to why it is here sir?” Ellis asked Ramirez.
“One of Lenkov’s contacts wanted me to use it for something. I have no idea as to what they want me to use it for. I know it must be very important for it to have been sent. But they gave me no details. I don’t know what to do with it.” Ramirez responded.
“So what do you want to do sir?” Ellis asked.
“I’ll download it and then figure something out later.” Ramirez responded.
It’s not surprising why Ramirez, although he did give it much thought (off and on), wanted to worry about other things. He did ponder rather or not they knew about the Golems, but he didn’t, or couldn’t, understand what he could do with Kronos. There is no way he could download it into the Golems. He had no way to trick them into downloading it. Nor did he fully understand how the neutral version of the code could be used effectually. He was stumped and it was made all the more difficult by him not understanding their tactics. Is he missing something? Is there something that he is overlooking? Is it a unique form of disinformation? Too many questions and not enough answers. If only he could figure out what they want him to do with it.
(6)
“This is Commander Williams, is this Lieutenant Commander Ramirez?”
“Yes. It’s good to hear from you. My team and I was split up I need to alert the world of the new threat.”
“Understood.” Commander Williams responded. After receiving all the information she left immediately on any aircraft that she could commandeer. One by one the rest of Task Force ZH-3C made it out of the destroyed factory. And at the same time the rest of the world would learn of the Golem threat.
“This is Captain Brunner. I will provide you with air support.”
“Oh my god sir. . . I didn’t know you could pilot a fighter.” Commander Williams stated after she saw his aircraft ID signature.
“That life goes back to when I was as young as you.”
“Outstanding sir!”
Task Force ZH-3C was reunited and was running to man a parked APC on the airbase. They could both see and hear the sky lit up by the helicopter gunships, fighter jets, troop transport and all other air vehicles as they all was taking on the four Golems. But before they could get to the APC the airbase was destroyed and with it, both Captain Brunner and Commander Williams was dead. The greatest nightmare for all was adverted with the destruction of that base, for the Golems were trying to reverse engineer whatever they could get their evil little AI nanites on. The Gray God was trying to consume all in it’s wake. And no one knew how to stop it.
(7)
“Although the factory that was producing all. . . sorts of. . . monsters. . . Hey Bill, do you feel that rumbling? What do you. . .?” The reporter was saying. She then turned around and saw the Golem in the distance. Her eyes grew wide with dread and fear.
“The Golem! The Golem is coming!” Some other reporter shouted in both horror and disbelief. It was at that point that the defensive turrets that was sat up starting shooting.
It was still nighttime and behind the Golem Ishtar rising. This Golem was understood to have been the factory one. The one who was understood to be capable of producing all sorts of monsters and machines. The apocalypse has now came to this once peaceful world. A mile (1.6 kilometer) monstrosity that has no known weaknesses. Not one. What was not known by the people of Golden Hyperion was that practically everyone in the Milky Way galaxy was watching including alien civilizations.
Everything that everyone had was thrown at the Golem. When something was blasted off, the Golem “grabbed” it with it’s nanites and reattach it. EMP bursts were more effective but it would adapt too quickly for the EMP burst to have much of an effect. Everybody could hear it groan and moan through some strange mechanical noise that it would make. And this is despite the sounds of battle just trying to take it down. (As luck would have it the Golem walked slow enough. It appeared that it had trouble in walking.) The scene was just too surreal with air vehicles flying over it dropping explosives. While another air vehicle would drop a EMP bomb upon it. All automatic weapon systems was rigged to blow in case it tried to incorporate it into itself. (But only when the weapon was inside it or attached to it.) Long range artillery (all robotic) would fire non stop.
“For some godforsaken reason the damn thing just stopped!” A reporter nearly shouted. It was four o’clock in the morning when the Golem finally stopped. But it only stopped for no more than twenty minutes. And then it started to shoot at everyone. But it was not a good shot.
“The Golem from the airbase had just made its debut! We will now try to leave this airspace. . .” The reporter in the helicopter was saying before the Golem at the airbase shot it down.
“There are unconfirmed reports that the communicational Golem had just made its debut near Lake Russell!” Another reporter, shouting over the noise in the background, mentioned.
“Are you safe?” The newscaster asked.
“Come on. . . let’s get the fuck out of here.” The reporter mentioned to their camera operator forgetting that he is live on TV.
“We now can confirm that, yes indeed the communicational Golem has made its appearance. Also I would like to apologize to the people watching this for me dropping the F-Bomb on our audience. I was just too anxious to get out of there and quite frankly I was scared shi. . . I was scared out of my mind.” The reporter mentioned.
“We’re just glad that you are okay. And. . .” The newscaster was mentioning.
“Oh my god!” The driver shouted. He then swerved in order to avoid hitting something only to roll the news van over. There was darkness but everyone could still hear the audio. The audio suggested that they were still alive but the camera was damaged.
“You numnutz get the fuck out of here!” A unknown military voice shouted at the news crew.
“Oh my god did you see that!? He had no left arm!” One of the news crew mentioned.
“Oh god. . . I think that I’m going to be sick.” Another news crew mentioned.
“What’s going on? We can’t see anything here?” The newscaster asked.
“Not now! It’s headed our way!” The reporter responded.
There was a loud explosion and everything went silent. It took eight hours before the news room got the confirmation that the news team survived. As strange as it may seem, but apparently the Golem did not like reporters that much. Either that or the news reporters kept on being too close to the action and ending where they shouldn’t.
“Fucking hell! It’s breaking off pursuit of us!” Viper 33X angrily mentioned.
“Where is it headed!?” Taylor asked.
“It looks like it’s heading in the direction of the other Golems!” Wexler mentioned.
“Fuck! We got to figure out a way to get it to follow us! We got to get it off of this fucking world!” Ramirez nearly shouted.
“I have an idea.” Jaguar 42R mentioned after five minutes.
“Go ahead I’m listening.” Vaistll responded.
“Not too far fro
m here there is an old abandoned airstrip In one of the hangars is an old somewhat broken down Dominator. I know how to pilot it and Viper can act as my gunner.”
“’Somewhat broken down’?” Taylor asked.
“Yes sir. But it won’t take too long to fix it.” Jaguar 42R responded.
“How long will it take?” Vaistll asked.
“A few hours tops. That’s the best answer that I can give.”
“I don’t know. We can really use the two of you.” Vaistll responded.
“Ma’am. . . we are running out of options. We are fixing to face mission failure if we can’t get the Golem to follow us.” Ramirez mentioned.
“Are you sure that you can get it operational?” Vaistll asked.
“I’m fairly certain that we can.” Jaguar 42R lied to her.
“Yeah alright. Go ahead. Let them out.” Vaistll responded. She knew that something was wrong but she didn’t know what.
Roughly twenty minutes after nine o’clock both Jaguar 42R and Viper 33X made it to the airstrip. By fifteen minutes till eleven o’clock they finally got it working. When everyone saw the old Dominator coming and knowing who’s piloting it, it boosted everyone’s morale. The old Dominator classification S18-PN, unlike the newer ones, were a third as big as either one of the Golems. What’s more it has on board three low yield torpedoes. Unfortunately they can be fired upwards and outside a planetary body and not downwards towards the ground.
The Dominator S18-PN was pounding the airbase Golem relentlessly. (It appeared to have been the weakest.) At one point it could no longer pull itself together. The other Golems tried to protect it but to little avail. Seeing a great opportunity unfolding, the ground forces open the gates of hell on that one Golem. The whole sky appeared to have lighten up with intense artillery bombardment. It lasted for hours before the Golem was finally destroyed. Nobody could believe it, but it was true. At that point the Golems finally took the Dominator so seriously that it started to become obvious that the last three wanted it destroyed. They will follow it wherever it may go.
“It finally took the bait! And this time let’s hope its for real!” Coté mentioned loudly.
After fifteen minutes of pursuit it finally became obvious that yes, it did took the bait. What was left of the first fallen Golem received a heavy dose of EMP bursts, and pretty much anything else that they knew would kill those damn nanites. And then it was watched for several hours to make certain that it would never rise again. When the cleanup crew got there all last remaining traces of those nanites was finally removed and destroyed. Although it was not necessary to have performed those actions, no one wanted to take any chances.
“Those damn things are determined to take us out!” Coté mentioned.
“Isn’t that what we wanted?” Nakada asked her.
“It’s a classic chess move. Kill the king.” Wexler added.
“Did it just say what I think that it said?” Coté asked about the Golems.
“Kronos! Krrrrooonoooos!” One of the Golems said. In the distance, at a safe distance, the media was buzzing around it. They too heard it. And they were televising it—live! Throughout the galaxy!
“Thank god I managed to get that damn thing to download it.” Ramirez stated.
“Oh shit! Was that what I thought it was!?” Coté stated out of shock and horror. She thought that she saw a skyscraper get consumed by one of the Golems and a unknown number of people as well. All ripped apart by those damn microscopic machines trying to keep a Golem alive.
At 22:28 hours they could see Wolf Creek in the distance. Up above they could see the Dominator S18-PN blasting the living hell out of each and every one of those damn Golems. Although they could not use the bridge, their APCs were amphibious. Once they got to the southern part of the Vegas style strip they waited and waited for the Golems to catch up.
“They’re confused! You guys got too far!” Jaguar 42R mentioned.
“Fucking hell!” Ramirez shouted out of anger.
“Alright. Let’s go back and get those dumb motherfuckers.” Vaistll responded.
It was easy for anybody to spot any one of those Golems. All the people of Wolf Creek had to do is to look to the south and spot the glowing sky. It seemed as if the Golems were constantly glowing from the bombardments. As soon as Task Force ZH-3C got back across the river, reinforcements finally got there and was crossing with them.
Everybody stood their ground trying to protect as many people as they could. It was getting harder to damage any one of the Golems. With each of the Golems being a such poor shot their rounds would go everywhere. The destruction to property, and to life, was growing wildly out of control. Vaistll then got the call that she was dreading.
“Hey ma’am.” Jaguar 42R was saying.
“Go ahead.” Vaistll responded.
“Do you really think that it is wise to let these damn things off of this world?”
“Well we don’t have much of a choice, now do we?”
“So what about the lost of life outside this world?”
“It would be the upper echelons of Skotadi.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Explain.”
“Look at this world for instance. How many could have been considered ‘the upper echelons of the Skotadi’ as opposed to the rest?”
“Well we can’t let them run amok upon this world, now can we?” Vaistll asked him.
“Even if it meant complete extinction for your people? Who do you think their next target would be?” Jaguar 42R asked her. She couldn’t respond.
“What do you two have in mind?” Vaistll eventually asked.
“We’ll think of something?” Jaguar 42R responded.
(8)
“Hey Wilcox. Where are you?” Captain Peterson asked.
“Where do you think?” Wilcox responded.
“Look… I don’t think that we should let these damn things off of this world.”
“So what. . . we should just let them kill everyone?”
“You know if we could destroy. . . (static).” Captain Peterson was saying. Something happened to his communicational link to Wilcox.
“Say again. I lost you.”
“I was saying that if we could destroy them that truly would be spectacular.”
“For whom?”
“What do you mean? It would be spectacular for us all. Everybody upon this world.”
“I think that you need to get your head examined.”
“You know this world may still have some old torpedoes laying around. Or there may be some left over from Dark Phoenix’s victory.”
“Naw, I think it’s a long shot. We need you here.”
“I think that we should try it. Look, what if we could pull it off? What then?”
“So you’re just doing this for fame and attention?”
“Maybe so. But you got to admit it, it truly would be awesome to pull it off. Now think about it. We, me and you, stopped Dark Core, or should I say Dark Core greatest weapon that they could ever conceived of, right here upon this world. Why let someone else get the credit?”
“Look, I’m tired and. . .”
“Of what? Or should I say of whom? The media perchance? Don’t worry about them. You let me take care of that. Okay?”
“And what if there are no torpedoes? What then?”
“Then at least we can say that we tried. I do believe that the people of this world would forgive us of at least trying. Come on. What do you say?” Captain Peterson mentioned. Wilcox wanted to give in but he truly wasn’t certain that it would work. What else could he do but to give in? At least then he could say that he tried.
“Yeah alight. On your head so be it.” Wilcox responded.
“’On my head’?” Captain Peterson asked.
“With the media.”
“Are you still upset about your poor performance in front of the media?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You know, we all went through
what you went through. So don’t worry about it.”
The two of them had that conversion roughly 94 minutes after the Golem retook the bait. It wasn’t until 03:18 hours that Peterson returned with only three old torpedoes. Unfortunately each one was a low yield measured in the kilotons. The Golems by that time was already leaving Wolf Creek and was still following Task Force ZH-3C on board the monorail. The team was asleep throughout the journey that led them back to where it all began. After Peterson gave the torpedoes to Wilcox he then left and started to scour the area around Ishtar for any torpedoes that may have been left. He also sent a urgent communiqué to Maxwell for the location of any possible torpedoes that may have been left behind. It took almost six hours before he got the return message, and thus he found one single torpedo. But would it be enough? How could they win with what they got? He was afraid that it may not work.
(9)
“Listen up everyone! The torpedoes are here! Fall back to a safe distance!” The officer mentioned over the radio system to all air and ground forces.
The communicational Golem, which was somewhat of the slowest, was also the farthest away from the other two. It was still trying it’s best to cross the eastern waterway nearest Wolf Creek. (It was also somewhat close to the ocean.) When the crew with the three old torpedoes arrived. (The torpedoes was already retrofitted to be able to fire and to be guided by a retrofitted mobile artillery.) The first torpedo used was the one with the smallest yield at 1 kiloton. It struck the Golem in it’s left “elbow” completely destroying it’s left arm. (It look like it did more damage blowing the left half of it’s “torso” apart but those damn nanites “grabbed” the pieces blown off and reattached them.) They then used the 8 kiloton torpedo and it hit the Golem in it’s right “hip” causing the Golem to fall into the water. The Golem was blown in half by the explosion. Although it’s left arm and it’s hip was no more it still was not dead. It still had it’s “legs” they were just not attached to it anymore. They then decided to use the 15 kiloton on it. Because the Golem was almost completely under water, with it’s right arm periodically coming out, they had to guess at where it was under water. When the explosion was over they heard nothing but an eerie calm. A brave helicopter pilot then few over the site and got low to the water.
2288: The Skotadian Experiment Page 41