“When is my mommy coming back?! She said she’d be here with my food 30 minutes ago!”
…OK true I admit, that is not the most intimidating sentence that has ever been uttered, but just bear with me here. He really is famous for being the best. Just look at the way his retinue hangs on his every word.
“Yes master, she will be here soon, we have no doubt.”
There see? On his way to another skirmish, his cloak hanging behind him like so many deceased enemy soldiers, he made his way through the crowd. Normally speaking, there is no fanfare for being a virtuoso in the craft of death, but in this case it is a little different. Most soldiers of his kind work in seclusion, hidden. However in this case our little protagonist lives without fear, and you’ll soon see why. All his work is right out in the open for all to see.
He was a mercenary by choice. Not having any affiliations with any particular race or creed or denomination, even though he was a human colonial of an out of the way outpost in Proxima Centauri. He really only answered to the highest bidder. Regardless of the cause, whether the army he fought for was as part of a totalitarian dictatorship or of a race of slave masters made little difference to him. What did make a difference however was the highest number and broadcasting his feats meant promoting himself. It also meant picketers of course and he was not without those who would gladly see him assassinated. Some held up signs with bombs threats or favoring some rival faction they had fought, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Haters or fans, it was all televised. He wended his way through the mobs with his escorts like the shark driving his way through any and all barriers at the smell of fresh blood of his next kill. He was impacting societies in many ways by changing the outcomes of war. Outcomes which may very easily have lead down other paths and corridors by the propagation of one species over another. But his interests more lay in creating another expansion to his already opulent estate or getting the latest in materiel. What do I think of this you ask? Well, I don’t want to get into a big rant on this when there is a story to tell, but I can say that… oh wait he was about to speak again…
“Can someone clean up this mess? Every time I come in here it smells like my grandma just took a dump.” A helper nodded profusely in assent and beckoned for three men to get a cleaning crew.
OK that was not the most engaging dialogue I admit. But…
“And why does my reserve control box have to look like it was made by Fisher-Price?”
“We will change that right away sir!”
Sigh. OK this narrating job is not what quite what I had in mind but I will try to hang in there. This is a little trying I have to say. I’m going to attempt to remain calm here. Now yes, yes, yes I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, how does a spoiled little brat come to be the greatest warrior this side of the Milky Way? Well we’ll get to that in a moment. But I can tell you that the most hard-boiled callous soldier with the most gaudy weapons using the finest in strategy would not stand a chance against our little friend here. That’s a fact. No chance, none.
So just how does he do it? Well let’s start with a simple history lesson shall we? Through trial and error it was found that a war fought with human bodies was a war lost. That was proven time and time again throughout warfare in the stars. Bodies were fragile and delicate little things compared to what could be used in battle. I mean think about it, you poke a body with a stick and it’ll bleed. You throw it against a wall at anything more than 30 mph and it goes splat! It can’t handle extreme G forces and changes of direction without going all to pieces, so they are slow. They need air, which in case you forgot, doesn’t exist in space and has to be transported all over the place in limited supply. They need so much sleep, they need food of a specific kind which is also limited. I mean the list goes on and on. They can be poisoned, killed through change in temperature, dehydration, don’t get me started. How much time do we got here? They are frail, and when war time came around, they died off in droves and had to be protected. No bodies were what you played for, but they were essentially obsolete in actual battle.
Oh our hero just sat down in his Ops Pod, just wanted to keep you up to date.
“Can someone get me a coffee?” he said perturbed and then passed gas unabashed.
OK I’m just going to ignore him for the time being before we get to the more interesting part.
No, if you wanted to survive you used highly sophisticated robotic drone surrogates who fought for you. Heavily armored so they definitely didn’t bleed, they traveled at intense speed, and using the latest in firepower, they didn’t quit when injured because of pain. They also came in many forms, to fulfill many different purposes such as surveillance, heavy assault, fast transport, you name it and there was always a model number and requisition form to meet your need. Cyborgs and mechs were also phased out because the human flesh portion of the soldier was simply too brittle and easily overcome. The only question remained, who was left to control these beasts of war that could easily topple all mankind? You might think they ran on autonomous programming right? Wrong.
“Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp!”
OK let’s just put him on mute for now shall we?
No, you could program a machine to fight, and have perfect aim and tremendous reaction time, and yes a computer could play a game with limitations like chess which has 288 billion possible positions after 4 moves and is bound to certain movements, but as any new recruit could tell you, an algorithm can always be bested by an extremely competent human who can quickly adapt to programming and find alternative circumventions.
In fact it was a common strategy to find the human controllers within Operations Pods or “Op Pods”, being in fragile bodies of course, wipe them out, you could leave an army “botted” and left to run by computer. They still fought after that of course but they would quickly succumb to a well-coordinated human squad. “Vacating”, it was called. If you could vacate the enemy troops, the battle was as good as won. Sniffing out human Op Pods was something our little friend here quite excelled at, but let’s not jump ahead.
There were many competent human drone pilots of course and all bring controlled by remote, societies came and went and force lead the way to the conquest of all kinds of races. Some pilots fared better than others. With all manner of control peripherals, some truly skilled humans could even control two drones at once. Within the tens of millions of human soldiers it was very rare indeed, but yet possible, to find someone who could actually control 3. But in all the stars, there was really only one man who control 3, a heavy armored footman, an aerial attack drone, and a tank while at the same time commanding his own army in real time. Or one boy I should say. Drander Ventris of Proxima Centauri, fourth moon, age 9. With reaction time that would seem to defy the laws of physics, a tactical mind Sun-Tzu could have been proud of without ever having cracked a text book, little Drander had yet to lose an engagement. With him leading troops to battle, even against difficult odds, that army was assured to win, or in the event of a protracted conflict, to turn the tide of war and his stock was always seeming to be on the rise. His skill had begun to be apparent at the ripe old age of four when he began playing and besting 2 combat flight simulators simultaneously at the impossible difficulty setting. His parents enrolled him in the space flight academy soon after and the rest is history.
To ensure success in actual battle, he needed superlative team mates. It took him a while to find the best, but after a few years and many try outs, he finally assembled what he considered was the best 20 drone pilots in this sector. Those that failed the tests commonly became rivals and could end up on the opposite of the fight. He had to be careful that he only went with those that fought completely without flaw. Over time they dubbed themselves “the Despots”. While they might lose a drone here and there, being operated from remote, no one ever actually died and so life was not as deadly serious as it might be. However for the populaces of the worlds they fought, being in the position of potential conquest, war was all too deadly
and real.
By general rule, drones squadrons were usually controlled by a remote team of 12 kids all in communication with each other in the same Operations Pod. Whereas it was normal to have a human Ops Pod be hidden, as it would quickly become a primary target, so far no other army had even tried to attack the Despots. Space probes would long have sniffed out any hostiles and retribution would be both swift and fatal. This was a point of both pride for the Drander and his team and was a direct affront to any rival army they had ever or would ever duel.
Reaction time was a very important aspect of combat and interestingly enough was one of the reasons why most soldiers were quite young. Once past 20 a soldier was considered old. War generals were actually required to be able to get along well with kids if they had any hope of being successful, as their army literally depended on children. But anyways enough babble, I think you get the picture. You probably want some action or something yes? Even though he might seem invincible, let’s join our little buddy as he begins his daily exploits. I’m going to unmute him here…
“…and he thought that he would be able to escape with just a land speeder built in Hondar! Can you believe that? Any of the missiles from my surveillance bot could’ve vaporized him, even without acceleration perks.” He had an open channel to his team while planted in front of his 5 view screens, 1 for each drone, 1 for the overall map and one for communications and surveillance.
Oh, oh! I forgot, as narrator I probably should take a moment to physically describe little Drander as he sits. I hope you’ll forgive me. Well, he is your typically 9 year old boy, stands about a gangly 3 ½ feet tall with a disheveled head of matted auburn. His eyes were probably his most defining feature, hidden behind a large pair of horn rimmed glasses he gave forth a piercing gaze that seemed to quickly devour any given situation in seconds. It was hard to hold his attention not because the world was boring, but because he knew everything he needed to know within a few moments. OK what else… He’s wearing a T-shirt that says “Up your…” OK well let’s just skip that part. His preferred method of control was a simple multi-dimensional air mouse for two of his drones and another controlled by his right foot. He didn’t always use that one unless he was in a tight battle however and there was not much happening today. He was able to give orders to different combatants using certain vocal intonations and most of his comm was uncoded English.
“I just let him go so he could go cry to his friends about how badly they just got demolished.” He finished and several of his squad snickered.
“What a loser.” Added Bilner onto the chat channel. “I bet the General is going to get on us about not finalizing another objective now.”
Bilner was one of his leading pilots and usually in on the chats. Most didn’t speak so as not to clutter up the open channel. But the way it was looking was that they were on their way to getting yet another General. This one was falling out of favor again and it would be their 3rd General this month. I’m sure that the Despots believed they didn’t even need a General at all. Probably true, having had little Drander.
They had been contracted by the United Human Federation of Planets, the UHFP, to wipe out an incursion by unknown outworlders encroaching on a series of planets near the outer rim in the Antares system. They were definitely technologically capable and had already taken down several peaceful convoys moving through various systems. Not knowing very much about them the Federation feared if they weren’t squelched quickly that they would not stop their hostile tendencies. They wanted someone to deal with them both quickly and overwhelmingly and yes, humanity was the highest bidder. So for the next few weeks it was taking on an unknown enemy while endeavoring to keep the human and drone casualty count to a minimum.
Today appeared to be another routine mission, an assault on an ammunition supply depot which was defended by a series of homing mines and small complement of war vessels. Nothing Drander hadn’t seen before, he left his third drone idle behind his team and they drew up in front of the nearest combat safe zone just on the outskirts of where they would be engaged by mines directly.
He gave his team their directions one by one and sat back for the most part as piece by piece, the mines were set off innocuously in the distance with shots from their scout drones. When the enemy war ships finally did approach, they were bombarded all at once from different angles as Drander had directed his team to do once they reached the exact right distance. With all fire concentrated on the smallest of the invaders it was neutralized and it meant one less source of attack. One by one the enemy went up in flames and no losses had been incurred. All drones retreated back to their launch craft in unison and they prepared for the next mission. They would arrive at the enemy warship assembly factory tomorrow night by the 3rd planet of the system, Grath. It would be their most dangerous assignment not knowing exactly what to expect as this was a new alien race. But none of them were very worried.
“I wish we could finally have a challenge. This is just too easy.” Drander said.
Well I hope I’m not giving too much away, but sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for, because you can end up exactly with what you asked. They all went to bed so as to be rested for tomorrow. They didn’t know that their next mission would go down in history…
* * *
It started as nothing too special. Drander got himself ready, washed his face and made his way to the Ops Pod along with 2 of his buddies. As usual they had an armed escort through the throngs of admirers and misanthropes. The police fought back some of the picketers so they could pass. The Despots usually amused themselves with what some of the signs said, everything from questioning their sexual preferences to wondering when they would hit puberty. There were always much more serious ones too, showing them pictures of some of the carnage and broken bodies that their campaigns had left behind, as well as broken families. However there was one sign that was peculiar. It was a bomb threat and right underneath was an encoded word which didn’t seem to make sense, but somehow felt familiar to Drander. He looked at the face holding the sign and read it. “Good luck in this your last mission! You da bomb!” it read. He couldn’t quite place the face…
“Do you know that picketer with the bomb sign over there?” he asked Bilner.
“He looks a bit familiar, I think he was one of your try outs from a couple of years ago. I know thousands of soldiers went away disappointed that they couldn’t be a Despot, some of them still hold grudges. But I couldn’t be sure.” He replied.
“Well whatever. Have you been practicing strafe runs, we will have to go planet side for this next mission.”
“I’ve done about 20 simulations using the exact same atmospheric conditions as we’ll be seeing on Grath, of course that was a year ago, but my stats had me almost at perfect execution with that weight. If I were to fail it would have to be from something we’ve never seen before.” Bilner let out a sigh, clearly he wasn’t too interested.
“So far these guys have not put up too much of a fight. What is our next objective after this target?”
Drander’s brow furrowed. “Nothing! We won’t be doing anything if we don’t make it through this mission. We lost 2 very expensive drones last week and our mission successes have not made a profit so far for this campaign. We can’t expect every time out to be a walk in the park, we barely know anything about these guys.”
“Ok ok! I’m on top of it. Calm down.”
The rest of the ascent to the Pod was without words. Each one of them secured themselves into their harnesses and inspected their systems. It was like clockwork to them at this point. Having been together for almost two years, they almost seemed to work as one.
“Hafner, do you know that your ground strafing drone is low on EM Pulse bombs. Do you realize that you are going to blow through that whole stash before we’re even half way through our mission today? Can you please load your drone properly.” Drander instructed.
“Come on you guys. This is no joke. We have never engaged this
enemy on the ground before and this installation is guaranteed to be highly defended… AND WHERE THE HELL IS STAFFNER?!”
The group in pod 3 looked around them a bit bewildered.
“He was here a second ago man.” Came through the chat channel.
“I think he was up late last night watching vids of his girlfriend. There was a concert and she…”
“Someone get him out of bed right now! Can’t you see our dropship is almost in range and all our drones could be under attack in the next few minutes.” Drander bellowed.
They all surveyed the tactical map. It was true, something was approaching their dropship. They didn’t seem too worried being universes away personally, but it was an oddity. All controls and commands were relayed to the drones by a series of about 5 or 6 command relay satellites from their current location. They were two systems away, not more than that because otherwise there would be enough lag between control motions to possibly give the enemy the upper hand. Nevertheless they were still not worried. But something had the audacity to actually approach their army of drones which packed enough state of the art firepower to conquer several planets!
They sat back as the camera zoomed in on what it was. It was looked like two small robotic humanoids. Probably scouts, harmless enough, they let them get closer, more out of curiosity than anything else. Meanwhile Staffner hooked himself into position as furtively as possible. They hoped they were live bodies in suits and not robotic, that would make then ten times less durable.
Wait there was an insignia on the suits. Drander zoomed further. It was man-made, not alien. The insignia was one of a snake coiled around a sword breathing fire, and something with a rabbit? That emblem was somewhat characteristic of one of the Hondars, a race of hostile peoples that had been driven from their home worlds two campaigns ago by Drander and his team. Hmm, wonder how they got all the way into this system? That was quite unexpected. Also there was something about that emblem…
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