Asteroid Blues

The Interventors must have found a backdoor into the control network. ALEPH does not make such mistakes.

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When the Nomads’ infiltrators started registering on the sensor arrays in the Chimneys, it was clear they were again attempting to subvert ALEPH’s authority in the region with their usual dirty tricks. However, they could not compete with the raw tactical processing power possessed by even a fragment of ALEPH — the onsite Marut unit Hyperion immediately assumed direct control of operations. In mere moments, it projected several thousand possible combat scenarios, identified the highest-probability match, and assigned the optimal combat plan accordingly.

Then it summoned Achilles.

Seizing the initiative and stealing a march on the Nomad interlopers, Hyperion anchored the left side of the battlefield, while Achilles deployed to the right. In a flash, the golden warrior was off, charging headlong up his side of the field without so much as a thought for his own safety. Eschewing cover and taking on as many targets at once as he could find, ALEPH’s champion sprinted across the broken landscape, deftly hurdling rocks and fresh corpses alike. He gunned down a lurking Zero, an overwatching Lunokhod, and a nimble Liberto mercenary on his way to the enemy’s field command post, each before they could draw a bead on his blurred form. Once in the Nomad backfield, Achilles decapitated the insurgency’s command structure, removing two Alguaciles and a Kriza Borac from the equation.

As projected, the disruption of the Nomad command sent their forces into disarray. Undeterred, their Morlock units attempted to charge Achilles with their crude weaponry and smoke grenades, but succeeded only in obscuring him. However, the rest of the army struggled to mount a coordinated counterattack. A Bandit revealed his hiding place in the midfield and destroyed a nearby Netrod and Mk. V Proxy while threatening Hyperion with some kind of jury-rigged adhesive gun. However, he was soon dealt with, with friendly forces suffering only minimal casualties. A Prowler skulking nearby ventured across open ground towards a nearby antenna and began operating on it. Hyperion’s sensors detected D-Charges being planted; it was time to act.

The Marut sprinted forth, its MULTI HMG unleashing a booming fusillade at the enemy Prowler. But here, the projections failed; the high-caliber rounds struck home unerringly, but as the Prowler fell, his hand opened to reveal a detonator — a dead-man’s trigger. The antenna was torn asunder as the shaped charge put a white-hot lance of molten metal through its base in the blink of an eye, and it collapsed into a pile of fragments, joining the carpet of detritus already strewn across the cavern floor. Scylla and the Mk. I Proxy moved forward to take stock of the remaining antennae and chase off the lingering Moran, but it wasn’t enough. The Moran tagged two more antennae, reversing the AI’s control over them, and retreated, his purpose already accomplished.

And so, just as suddenly as it had begun, the conflict was over. ALEPH was left mostly intact, but the Nomads had gotten what they’d come for.

The postmortem cross-checking of the combat subroutines is already underway.