Aeris - Guardian Force - Prologue. Prologue

Joshua Rintel, Codename Aeris, looked around the battlefield with a cautious eye. The fallen soldiers lying around the field was a testament to the fury of the battle between the two warring factions. These bodies included both the Sol Federation and Thorian Empire. Some had holes entirely blown through them, and their armor, by the plasma rifles the Thorian Empire’s shock troops used. Others showed the brutal wounds of combat with hard light melee weapons, limbs that had been hacked off, disembowelment, or grievous injuries splitting a person in two. Was this a victory? No. Nor was it a defeat. It was another stalemate in a long line of them in this war. ‘What a waste of life,’ Aeris thought to himself.

Walking through the charred remains of a forward spotter’s nest, the dead littered the ground. Aeris was searching for one specific person, the Cyborg Spotter of this post, Spotter 51349. Commander Walter Tathler was the one that ordered him here. It was no secret Aeris, and Commander Tathler did not get along. He should have been back at the command post. He should be guarding his charge there. Not out being a solo search and rescue team. This land used to be rolling hills, covered with thickets of pine and oak trees, but now it is pot marked with blast craters, charred remains of defensive barriers, and the western shield barrier. Aeris crouched down to look at the remains of a soldier and ran the palm scanner of his suit over the forearm of the body. With the ID confirmed, Aeris turned the body over on its stomach and removed its helmet. Taking out a small tool kit, he removed the retrieval device from it and proceeded to open up the cyber/neural interface port of the soldier.

It's gruesome work, parting the flesh of the scalp, clearing the blood and brain matter from the port. It takes time to download the information stored in the implant’s flash drive. Data which contains both audio and visual footage of what this man saw and heard since the implant was installed in his brain. It was always recording; even in the most personal of times. Command has been trying to find a way to remotely erase the flash drives, but as of yet haven’t found a secure way to do so. For now, strike teams, single SpecOps operators, or an after-action burial detail is required to do the work. Keeping on alert, Aeris sat down among the dead in this nest. It will take him a few hours to get back to command. Using the neural link to his suit, he activated the voice recorder.

“Action Report, sub-point 5,” he said into his helmet’s microphone. “Arrived at Spotter Nest Delta-5Actual at 03:30. Found Spotter 51349. Downloading implant flash drive, as I’m speaking. I met no resistance since the last sub-point. Saying heavy fighting occurred at this position is an understatement. All hands are dead. Western Shield wall has not been breached. Casualties include all 15 of Delta-5Actual personnel and approximately 25 Thorian shock troops. No evidence of tampering with Spotter 51349. Will make next update at sub-point 6, the extraction point for this op.”

His work finished on the download about 20 minutes later. Aeris put the kit back up and then pulled out a phosphorous grenade. Setting the weapon on its time delay setting for 1 min, he tossed the grenade on the body of the fallen soldier. He quickly made his way back towards the shield barrier wall. Aeris turned and spotted the bright white flash of the grenade going off in the darkness. Following the shield wall north for two hours, he arrived at one of the many guard stations and transmitted the clearance code for entry over an encrypted line of sight laser comlink. The reinforced door slowly opened into an airlock style series of hatches and turns before Aeris reached the other side. Safely back in protected Sol Federation territory, he finally relaxed and made his way to the extraction site.