by G Aliaksei C
Now, imagine the same thing but with tanks.
What didn’t they have. Spider tanks, hovering tanks, stealth tanks, mobile missile launchers, treaded artillery, armed mobile resource extractors… pink tanks. Half of the designs relied on technology and principles I thought to be impractical and impossible until now.
Full of curiosity I walked up to a spider tank, a six-legged machine that looked like a water bug with a turret. The hologram next to it claimed the tank was designed for ‘urban warfare’ and showed a clip of the thing effortlessly scaling a skyscraper, shells and lasers bouncing off the shimmering hull. The thing featured a recent development, upgraded gravity attractors on the legs that allowed for improved friction on surfaces. Another video showed the tank hanging off the ceiling of some hangar, upside down, running back and forth on the creaking structural beams.
I stared at the video, squinting, shaking my head.
“Not to your taste?” A sales android quietly stepped up to me.
I waved at the machine. “It could make for a flimsy toy, nothing more.” I made a disapproving hand motion, as if judging the war machine as having the survivability of a mattress.
The android laughed. “You Humans, especially Corporate, you always look at our newest, best designs with such disapproval!”
“It barely has any armor! These legs look like they can be disabled with a kick to the knee!”
He raised a finger, waving it at me. “This vehicle employs expanded joint armor and reactive plating. It is impervious to almost all forms of infantry weaponry.”
“Alright, sure, but it has no protection against other tanks! Another cannon wouldn’t even have to try to punch through a leg!”
“That’s what the deflectors are for, is it not?”
“And all it would take is a way to get light shells through deflectors, or a weapon that ignores shields. That, or just a really big wrench!” I felt no shame arguing with the sales robot about his own merchandise - I knew how real war machines were supposed to be built.
“Why do Humans always say that? About something small and insignificant being able to disable a serious war machine?”
“Serious war machine? Please. With all those joints and moving parts, it must be a logistical nightmare. It’s so overengineered! In what situation would you need your tank to hang off the ceiling like a fly on a lamp?”
“It has great gun depression, though!” He said that as if the rest of the tanks in his care lacked such features and were continuously ridiculed by Humans for it.
“If it’s going to hang off ceilings you need great gun elevation, not depression!”
The android pointed to the side. “We have older models with additional defensive mods available. They are slower, larger, but much better armed and armored.”
I glanced there, considering. Indeed, a heavier variant of the same machine towered in the distance.
I shook my head in disapproval, but a curiosity overtook me. “Do you have anything more traditional? Something that can move quickly and over rough terrain, but doesn’t need to climb buildings? A tank that isn’t meant to flank enemies from above.”
The android took me to the row of hovertanks, presenting me with a medium-sized variant. A click of the remote, and the machine hummed to life, lifting off its stand.
Unnecessary lights under the hull to make sure everyone understands the glory of a hovering tank? Check.
An ominous humming, like a vacuum cleaner trying to pull up a kitten? Check.
Other than the theatrics, this design pleased me much more than the spider-tank. It was solidly built, with sloped armor, a dangerous-looking gun, and lacking the impractical cosmetic nature that most other candidates presented.
I asked the salesman to leave me alone and spent some time examining the machine. Several engineering choices in the design were quite interesting and original, while some bits were basic and outdated in my very educated eyes. The whole thing reminded me most of a bodiless Russian T-90 turret in design and shape, with a stretched hexagonal body that housed the systems responsible for the tank’s hovering state. A stunning revelation was that the machine was built to house only one crew member; a combined driver, commander and gunner who was responsible for every function of the machine. I shook my head, wondering how one could deal with so many tasks at once in battle.
Tired of drooling at toys outside my price range I decided to head home, quietly escaping the lot and doing my best to back-track the Gates we passed earlier. With each transition the city around became smaller, and the number of people lessened until I exited onto the familiar plaza of Drake Monument town.
It was day here now, and several people were casually moving through the streets. It seemed less abandoned than at night, but still unnaturally quiet, dubbed only by the wind howling against the dome overhead.
Wind? I looked up and saw waves of storming rain bash away at the glass-like half-sphere separating the town from the outside world. Hurricane-like winds turned half of the dome into a turbulent mess. I let out a panicked breath - I was lucky, very lucky indeed, to make the trip from the Monument in cloudless, clear weather before this storm hit. I doubted stepping out of the town was even safe right now.
And this was only a Class 3 zone!
Approaching a bunker with the overhanging sign “Inn” I knocked on the closed hatch. The door opened slightly, and two suspiciously squinting eyes looked out through the narrow opening.
The eyes stared at my chest for a moment, as if trying to focus, then looked up at my face and widened in surprise. The hatch opened further.
Just as every other Human on the Rings, she was short and flawless. Long, black hair framed a young face and ancient, crimson-red eyes. The surprise on her face slowly shifted into a frown.
“What do you want?” Her eyes dashed to my forehead. What the hell was so interesting up there?
“Is this the Inn?” I pointed at the sign overhead. She looked up at the letters bolted to the foam-concrete wall over the hatch, as if she hadn’t known they were there, still not understanding what I wanted. “I am looking for a place to say a few nights.”
That surprised her. “You want to stay here? In Monument Town?” I nodded. “100 CC per day, food not included.”
“Alright.”
She squinted at me. “Come in.”
Very neat, straight fingers flexed, muscles becoming visible for a moment as they pushed the door open.
Every Human I had seen so far looked… good. Undeformed, lacking anything that one could define as a disfigurement, and of an entirely unusual ethnicity, or more accurately its lack. On my trip along the Gate network I had seen plenty of Humans, all original but pleasant to the eye. Skin and eye color ran rampant up and down the rainbow. Scales, tails, height and muscle mass extremes were rare but more noticeable. Facial and skeletal structures varied just as much. All were definitely Human, but also definitely modified for purely cosmetic purposes. My favorite had been a massive man with Durasteel-black skin, glowing red eyes and a thick, long, dangerous-looking mechanical tail extruding from a convenient hole in his pants. That one might have actually had a purpose for his defining feature - the tail could potentially act as a weapon. Yet everything else that separated him from a default Human seemed to be no more than decoration.
And despite all that he, and every other Human I had seen, men and women alike, looked good.
Which was an incredibly alien concept to me. During The War, most men and women lost much of their physical distinction, trading it for more practical features. Both women and men were muscular, wide-shouldered, lean and tall. In armor, telling the two genders apart was impossible.
But the Innkeeper… she looked better. It wasn’t any particular feature, form or her clothes - she had the solid frame of a soldier, with a definite feminine touch where it mattered, and wore loose casual overalls. It was, rather, her motion. People move this way when the action they are performing has been practiced thousands, millions of
times. With this ease, soldiers snapped their hundredth neck. With this finesse gardeners planted their thousandth batch of flowers. With this precision a carpenter hammers in their millionth nail. Smoothly, efficiently, quickly, yet accurately. The Innkeeper did everything with this impossible grace, without making a single mistake or wasting a single motion. The explanation for this grace came later, when I had a moment to analyze - the perfection of motion did come with experience, with thousands of years of practice. It was the grace of a truly ancient being, an immortal.
I forced myself to drop the analysis and looked around. The Inn hall turned out to be brightly lit, with a cozy bar and several dining tables. A staircase led down. It was nice, for a bunker. Reaching behind the bar the woman pulled out a card and made grabbing motions at me. I transferred the hundred credits and had the card unceremoniously flung at me. The throw was slow, graceful and well-telegraphed, and I knew that, if she had wanted it, the Innkeeper could have killed me with that throw.
“Room two.”
“Thank you.”
The stairway took me ten meters underground, into a short hallway with ten doors on each side. Room two was just to the left of the stairway, and the card made the twenty-centimeter-thick hatch slide into the ceiling.
The room was cozy too. For a bunker. There was a metal bed with a thin mattress, a desk with a chair, a small dresser, and a large metal chest without a lock. A door in the back led into the restroom and shower.
The restroom had a mirror.
“What the fuck?”
I died and was revived on a ringworld thousands of years into the future? Fine. I met several alien races on my first day here? Awesome. Got shot? Unfortunate, but happens. Made friends? Great.
But this, this was disastrous.
My face was, in comparison to the locals, ugly. Sharp features and overly brutish lines were like day and night next to the perfect, immortal Humans of this new world. Whoever revived me hadn’t tried to make repairs. Genetic surgery had long ago removed my facial hair, but that was gone now, and a days’ worth of growth was visible, making me look even more barbaric. Under furiously-tilted eyebrows were two squinting eyes, lightly glowing from within with liquid gold.
And above, growing out of my forehead just under the black hairline were two Durasteel-black horns. They reminded me most of ram horns, thick and curving around my head towards the back, each about twenty centimeters in length. I grabbed them, confirming their unity with my skull. The damned things felt smooth and natural, and seemed so belonging that I had gone a day without knowing they were even there. They seemed to have no utility aside from distinction - no other Human I had seen today had the damned things, and everyone I talked to called me Corporate after spotting them. Some sort of identifying feature then?
At least they didn’t look too out of place.
No, that’s a lie, metal extrusions on a Human forehead would never look natural, but there was a certain cosmetic value to them.
How was I going to wear a helmet?
How was I going to sleep?
Removing first my weapons, then my powered armor, and finally my chestpiece and boots I packed the items away into the unlocked chest and collapsed onto the bed.
Three immediate problems appeared. First, I would need to shower, and that would take unbearable effort. Second, I had yet to see a hint at coffee anywhere in this world. And third, I would need to buy clothes, and, more importantly, underwear and socks. A damn toothbrush would be nice too.
I forced myself to fix the first problem - throwing the dusted, sweaty clothes into the sink and turning on the water I climbed into what proved to be a decent shower, equipped with soap and even some incredibly strong shampoo. I examined the holes in my right arm - they had become gray spots, with nanites working overtime to drive the flesh in to close the openings. I felt no pain or discomfort, but the five swirling masses looked weird.
Despite the uncomfortable nature of the topic I must explain a particular feature of a nanite-enhanced Human body - I rarely had to shit. The efficiency of my stomach allowed for great digestive efficiency and minimal waste, making the process of ejecting it much rarer. Which was why I had lasted a whole day and a half, plus a vast amount of time being dead, before realizing and appreciating the necessity of the Inn’s restroom.
The second and third problems on my list would have to wait until after sleep. I looked at the time at the top-right of my Menu and adjusted my somehow-functional watch, setting an alarm to bring me out of my coma in ten Earth hours.
Unwilling to consider the new nature of my existence further I rolled over onto my stomach. My head rested on my horns, leaving breathing room between the pillow and my face. It was surprisingly comfortable, like resting my head on a soft stand, and I quickly fell asleep.
3 : Brawling Industry
Day 3
I once performed a repair on a particularly damaged combot, an anomalous survivor of a battlefield where it, by all accounts, should have perished. Much of the deadly war machine was flash boiled or molten off, leaving a core of surviving electronics in a solid shell of deformed armor.
My task was not to bring the machine back into service, but rather to reactivate it enough for an active, willing download of all stored data. The combot had to be powered and active for the process, so I had no choice but to cut my way in and carefully replace enough components to revive the artificial brain.
I succeeded, but the result had been a sorry sight indeed. The brain was damaged and dying, barely functioning, struggling to perform even the simplest of functions. It responded to orders and queries with a pained delay and broken simplicity that made me feel quite sorry for it. It was like a damaged toaster, working at full power, smoking and sparking, struggling to cook a single slice of bread with the last of its burned-out coils.
I felt the same as that broken combot now as I scaled the stairs of the Inn, dragging with me one of my swords.
Within the tunnel of my pained vision appeared a table, and then a mug full of black liquid. This liquid quickly descended my throat, jet fuel-tasting salvation widening the scope of my consciousness and vision.
The picture was an unfortunate one. I stood at the bar of the Inn, wearing little more than my pants, staring down at an empty mug. The Innkeeper was shining a light in my eyes, while simultaneously trying to confiscate the mug.
I’m being mugged (hah), I decided, smiling like an idiot, and she is threatening me with a flashlight. Very dangerous. Better play along for now.
I let go, wholeheartedly thanking the kind woman with a raised, shaking fist, and dragged myself to the hatch leading outside. My feet sank into snow, forcing me to reconsider my sanity once more.
“The void damned meteorologists that said this was a sane place to settle need to be lynched,” escaped my single thought. Dropping the sword I began to dig through the snow, heading away from the Inn, grumbling the occasional profanity.
How did the snow even get through the dome covering the town?
I kept growling to myself like that until I reached the Gate. There I grabbed the lone crate with my name on it and dragged it back to the Inn. Eyes followed me across the bar as I slid the package down the staircase.
In my room I opened the crate, unlocked at a command from my Menu, and took out the weapon. The minigun had become significantly larger and more serious in its look. The massive barrels, bipod, and sizable black targeting brick on top gave the weapon a threatening, if somewhat absurd look.
The ammo was interesting to take apart. The rear shell came off first, revealing a sizable quantity of brilliant dust. Three ribbed shell pieces surrounded the main, thinner warhead. The warhead itself had a tiny Gem at its core, and a black Durasteel tip.
Somewhere along the disassembly process the coffee kicked in, partially neutralizing the poison in my blood and mind, returning most of my comprehension.
Loading the ammo into belt-bags I stacked away the handsome cannon and put on the rest of my sli
ghtly wet clothes, freshly rinsed in the sink after a night of soaking. Making sure I had some time to spare before the meeting with Rarus, I went back up.
A modern equivalent of a plate of potatoes and sausages awaited me, with bread and water on the side. Very Human, very neat.
“Thank you.” I nodded at the frowning Innkeeper, investing as much emotion into the words as was possible in my critical condition.
“Feeling better?”
I coughed, fully recalling the rudeness of my earlier actions. “Yeah. Thanks.” The incredible pain and distress in my head was really subsiding now. Picking up a fork, I started making the food disappear.
“Quite the show you put on earlier. Lack of coffee does that, I suppose?”
“Lack of neural boosters does that.” The morning effect was an inevitable result of my past life. Before death I had a habit of taking several doses of mental accelerators and stamina boosters weekly. With my death I had held out hope of avoiding the withdrawal scheduled for today. Unfortunately the addiction was mental rather than physical and carried over to the new body. Now, thousands of years into the future, I was paying back the agonizing debt for those sleepless nights.
The Innkeeper leaned in, whispering enigmatically. “What’s with the box?”
“Gun.”
That single word caught her interest. She dragged out a chair from under the bar and sat across from me, leaning back. “You’re going ratting?”
“What’s that?” I timed the conversation in a way that allowed me to speak between chewing.
“It means Beast hunting.”
“Ah. Yes, supposedly.”
“Who’s the organizer?”
“Some Inson.”
“Good choice, those will never betray you. What zone and Ring?”
“Class three - four, here, on the Hades Ring.”