Alright, with the wait for SupCom 2 unbearable (damned European release dates) and my fingers hungry for some tip-tap-typin' I came up with some fanfictional babble. I hope you might find it enjoyable.

About the story, The Infinite War sucks up our beloved three factions into a war that takes a thousand years. With the actual Supreme Commander ushering in its end. Now, sure, I love the game, but this story isn't going to actually be building on it as much as some of the other fanfiction might. This takes place only 600 years into the war and, for now, follows one Cybran commander on her mission.

Technically, she's not actually a commander, as she doesn't pilot an ACU. You see, I'm going to let my inspiration take me wherever it might and it means I might make up some stuff that is only loosely based on the games we love. But, then again, I doubt anyone reading this will be incredibly shocked by its contents, I don't intend to do anything wacky. For example, one might think of the 'RCU' the Cybran pilots as an early version of an SCU, perhaps. Again, there's 400 years between this stuff and Supreme Commander, so, have an open mind, 'kay?

Enough disclaimering, on with the madness!

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Chapter 1: Population +1

The universe seems serene as long as you view it from a safe distance. Though, no sane person would liken the incredible force behind the universe to one big piece of beautiful canvas dotted with stars and nebulas coexisting peacefully in time. The harsh reality of the galactic forces creates and destroys within the blink of an eye at any given moment. Billions of years of evolution on one planet might have just spawned the first sentient beings on a planet only to have fate see it all go to hell in a cataclysmic supernova. And that’s just considering the brute forces of the universe. Far more subtle are the people who travel between the stars, who explore, build and thrive, hardly phased by the universe and its ways.

Somewhere along the way the people of earth managed to get a grasp of all that lies beyond their wondrous blue pearl despite failing to get along with each other. History could account for the exact manner in which the people of earth managed to move beyond their planet and far, far beyond their solar system to get to where they are now. But no one needs to know anything about history to understand these same people will always have their differences, no matter the backdrop of their struggle. If there was ever one constant for the people of earth, that constant is war.

Though, on earth today, you might hear a politician say that we have entered an era of unprecedented prosperity and peace while only a few minutes later reminding everyone there is a war going on, and it has been for six centuries. And who knows, maybe if you vote for that politician come Election Day, he’ll finally put an end to this terrible struggle that keeps the outer colonies in its clutches, but not by making you pay for it of course. Oh no, politicians of all times and ages will tell you, you can have your cake and eat it too. But a war is a war, whether they dub it ‘infinite’, ‘glorious’ or ‘horrendous’, and it wages on in the depths of space.

In one such war torn corner of the universe was the planet of Tesslebeck. It was nothing but a rock when it was discovered before the war, but it was a very rich rock. And like every rich rock it attracted colonists and they began construction on the planet with great haste. Cities rose from the dirt and huge terraforming facilities began pumping out a suitable atmosphere. Tesslebeck was like a rough diamond in the middle of no-man land, nearly on the outer edge of known space at the time. But that was then. Today, the planet’s name was nothing but a relic from the past without any colonists to think of it as home. Tesslebeck had become forlorn and was only home to a hand full of people at a time.


“Adina Drugov. You are summoned to briefing room three. Proceed there immediately.” The monotone voice of the artificial intelligence which operated most of the station interrupted Adina’s game of chess.
“Ugh! Again you evade a crushing defeat!” Niran complained when the AI ordered his opponent away from their battle of wits.
“You should have your cybernetic implants checked, Niran. There must be something wrong with them if you really thought you even stood a chance.” Adina boasted as she got up.
“I was mopping you up, Drugov!” Niran was clearly annoyed by the fact his chance to beat Adina was lost, “But I will take solace in the fact that you’ll be gone at last.”

Adina didn’t bother to respond to Niran. He might be the station’s star pilot, but all that had done for the man was make him more of a bastard as far as she was concerned. She would have gone without ever rematching Niran if he hadn’t more or less coerced her into playing one last game before her mission. She had really gotten on his nerves by forcing their first and only game into a stalemate. Niran had laughed it off at first, but when he came for a rematch a month later Adina wasn’t interested. In fact, when she noticed Niran’s annoyance she purposefully never played a single match of chess against anyone. Perhaps it wasn’t the smartest thing a rookie pilot like her could have done, it certainly didn’t make her training on the station any easier, but she thought it was worth the trouble. In the end she became somewhat of a hero to those who couldn’t stand Niran. Of course, nearly everyone hated his bloated egotistical guts, but there were plenty of people who preferred pretending he was a great guy.

Her mission had been in the works for a while, and she knew it was going to take her far away from her symbiont colleagues and out into the unknown by herself. But she wasn’t worried, she had been through so many simulations already, and she always passed them with quite a margin. She was a bit disappointed when she heard she was put in the recon brigade, since she was sure she had shown the skills required to be given a seat in a state of the art Armored Command Unit and become a part of the combat brigade, but she had no such luck. She could live without the prestige, but she had always thought she could make a difference in the war, and realistically the recon brigade was not the way to turn the balance of the war. Normally one or two members of the recon brigade would be dropped onto a hot world to scout out resources and a suitable entry for an ACU, which was critical to a successful attack on any planet. But her target wasn’t going to be hot, she was going to be dropped on a forlorn world and there was no intention of sending anyone after her.

The briefing wasn’t going to be very enlightening, she could regurgitate every report she had been given for study about Tesslebeck word for word if she wanted. There would still be a great deal of unknowns about the forlorn planet, since no Cybran had set foot on it in over a decade, but every slightly relevant detail had passed by Adina at least twice in the past few weeks. She was eager to get away from the endless reports, simulations and briefings and go and do something already. Of course, when she sat down in briefing room three she got to hear all about how Tesslebeck was claimed by the Aeon Illuminate and the three way skirmish which had laid waste to the planet through thermonuclear means. The Clash on Tesslebeck claimed just under 80 Cybran ACUs, though the entire campaign destroyed many more Aeons and UEF ACUs. Cybran intelligence estimated over 400 ACU’s were lost over the short few years of combat on Tesslebeck not even considering the lives of the Aeon colonists which had started living there after the original cleansing of Tesslebeck. It had become a giant resource sink hole for all factions involved and like other resource rich worlds which suffered the same fate, Tesslebeck became a forlorn world. A world abandoned by all factions out of fear of accomplishing nothing by attempting to retake the world but another waste of resources. It was like they had achieved a very destructive stalemate or a kind of non-verbal agreement regarding the world.

Of course, there really wasn’t anything stopping either side from going back to a forlorn world and attempting to claim it before the other factions could react. Though these attempts were usually foiled long before any kind of dominance was established and any combat on a forlorn world was mostly kept to some skirmishes usually followed by a retreat off-world. The Cybran Nation had very little interest in becoming a part of another three way battle on Tesslebeck and had been very cautious with sending anyone down to see what was happening on the surface. It was barely on the edge of Cybran space anyway, though, if any faction was ever to get a hold of it there would be significant consequences. Mostly the Cybrans relied on the UEF and Aeon to keep one another in balance regarding Tesslebeck, and made sure to keep a close eye on their communication networks regarding the planet. The last Cybran reconnaissance mission had already been over a decade ago and the word from higher up had been to send in a new pair of eyes to the surface to get some intelligence. Their taps on the UEF and Aeons didn’t indicate a lot of activity on the surface, but that didn’t meant Adina could be confident there wouldn’t be any dangers looming. Decade old traps set during the Clash were expected to be abundant aside from the possibility of active leftover combat units, even after all these years.

“Reconnaissance Command Unit Nine-Three-Seven has been fueled and is ready for boarding.” The voice of the station AI might have been as monotone as ever, but somehow it sounded to Adina like it was cheering her on. The briefing was exactly what she expected; boring. But that didn’t stop Adina from becoming more and more excited the closer she got to commencing her first real mission. She felt jittery near the end of the briefing and as she suited up for her mission she could feel her heart thumping away in her chest. Now that she stood but a stone throw away from the RCU her heart was practically trying to jump out of her throat.

“Your seat awaits you, Pilot Drugov.” The AI announced after the bridge that allowed Adina to enter the RCU was completely lowered. She had waited a long time to hear those few words, the words uttered when a pilot is given her unit, and she felt like she floated across the bridge and into the cockpit. Further down the huge hall several more command units stood watching her. There weren’t a lot of people out in the hall, but having the currently inactive ACUs and RCUs watching her was more than an audience enough. She almost forgot a great deal of the men and women she trained with were watching her first launch from the observatory and she gave them a final wave before closing the RCU’s hatch.

“Good Afternoon, Adina.” An AI said as the internal systems of the RCU came online. This time it wasn’t the same voice that could be heard all over the station, this was her personally configured AI. It had a warm female sound to it, something like how a mother would speak to her child. She liked it that way, especially compared to the obligatory companion AI she was going to be stuck with as well. They were mandatory because the recon brigade’s missions could take quite a while and most of that time they would spend utterly alone. The AI was meant to be partly a pilot’s friend and part a psychologist, to make sure the pilots wouldn’t get lonely or snap while performing their task. She found the ‘shrinkbot’ she got stuck with to be a complete jerk. Complaining to the AI programmers working on the station didn’t do any good, though. They insisted that the AI was configured to suit her needs as best they could. They were a bunch of jerks too.

“Are you ready to proceed with the checklist, Adina?” The AI asked while Adina strapped herself into her seat.
“Yes Nia, please proceed.” Adina said and in turn the AI began the whole pre-drop checklist. Adina had named her personal AI after the pet cat she had when she was little. She wasn’t sure why, but at the very least it was better than the shrinkbot’s name; ‘Packy’. Luckily Packy wouldn’t come online until after they dropped onto the forlorn world, so for now she’d be able to enjoy her peace together with the pleasant Nia.

It wasn’t very surprising to find everything on the checklist to work perfectly within parameters, RCU-937 had been dropped into the station only a few weeks back and had yet to be used. The machine was as fresh from the assembly line as they got. Perhaps it wasn’t as impressive as an ACU; it lacked in size, armor and weaponry, but on the other hand it had greater speed, maneuverability and built in stealth capabilities. It also lacked quite a bit in its building capabilities, with only limited resources available and lacking any engineering drones to help out, but it wasn’t designed for building armies anyway. She’d be able to piece together the critical components for sending and receiving information at least. In times of need her database did hold a great variety of building plans for anything she might need during her mission, so all in all she had everything she needed and more. The real challenge for a mission on a forlorn world was getting off it again after completion, but she had maps with a few locations of old quantum gates that might still work or that she could repair for her return to the station. But it might be weeks before the people at mission command decided they had seen enough, so she wouldn’t be going near those gates any time soon.

“Checklist completed. Requesting to be added to the gate queue.” Nia reported. It was only a matter of time before the massive machine was going to be towed towards the quantum gate and then dropped across space within an instant. Adina pondered about what it would really feel like to be dropped. From what she had heard the simulations didn’t do it any justice, but how could it? The quantum gate required such an enormous amount of energy, each drop was a huge undertaking. Given the costs of the command units and the use of the gate, drops were never actually practiced, only simulated. Having to drop several units halfway across Cybran space during an emergency was a huge strain on the station’s fusion reactor. The only time it happened during Adina’s stay they sent three ACUs through the gate and several non-critical systems overloaded in the process. The strain on the station is enormous during a drop, though it can handle a single drop reasonably comfortably at least, especially when it comes to a smaller RCU.

“Request acknowledged. RCU-937 is next on the gate queue.” Nia continually updated the situation. Two large orange flashing lights turned on as well as a siren to warn anyone nearby that the gate was active and charging for a drop. The platform under the RCU’s feet also began moving slowly towards the gate and a countdown appeared on one of the many screens surrounding Adina. 53 seconds until she’d be dropped onto a forlorn world… So little time to ponder so many things. What would she find on the other side? The last mission was a decade ago, yes, but the RCU they sent back then never reported back. All the intelligence Adina had on Tesslebeck was at least 25 years old or stolen from one of the other two sides, and how much you could rely on any of it was to be seen. There had been a big investigation about the previous mission to Tesslebeck and one of Adina’s objectives was to go to the coordinates where the last RCU supposedly dropped to put an end to the speculations regarding it.

Twelve seconds left as the platform stopped in the middle of the quantum gate. Adina’s heart pounded away violently and her hands clasped the sides of her chair as she watched the monitors show the situation outside.

“Ten seconds until drop, Adina.” Nia gave a completely redundant heads-up.
“Yeah, thanks.” Adina muttered.
“Good luck.” The AI said with but a few seconds left, though it did nothing to ease Adina’s mind.

“Three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
“Activate!”

Tesslebeck has two continents, one in the northern hemisphere which began with a temperate region but as it went north becomes artic until at the far end, on the other side of the planet it becomes temperate again. The second continent is more or less entirely on the same longitude, just south of the equator. The large ocean that filled up the rest of the planet was a byproduct of the terraforming process started many centuries ago. At first there was hardly any water, the two continents were connected and spread across the entire globe, but eventually the planet became more of an earthlike place instead.

It was night on the eastern edge of Tesslebeck’s southern continent. All that could be heard was the wind blowing through the few bushes and trees who seemed to be unaware of the death and destruction which the planet had been subject to nearly a century ago. The metal remains of a great deal of destroyed machines were scattered about when a flash of light struck like thunder on a clear day. The ground trembled and the trace energy from the drop of RCU-937 rushed in all directions, throwing debris and plant life aside.

“Drop successful.” Nia reported while the screens inside the RCU began showing a great number of diagnostics regarding Adina’s surroundings. Adina herself remained petrified in her chair for a moment, still clasping the sides with all her strength until she came to the realization all was well. She sighed, it had been quite a ride, and definitely nothing like the simulations. She carefully looked at the monitors before putting her hands on the controls of the RCU so she could take a better look around.

“Initializing Artificial Companion.” Nia spoke the dreaded words, though of course in her warm motherly voice.
“Oh boy.” Adina complained, but it wasn’t like the RCU’s AI was going to change protocol, whatever she might say.
“The Artificial Companion is now active, Adina. Preliminary sensor data suggests the surrounding area is clear of any activity. The stealth systems have been brought online, you are ready to begin exploration.” Nia’s updates kept coming, but Adina was too busy preparing herself for Packy, less with starting her exploration.

Things remained silent inside the cockpit for several seconds, perhaps the shrinkbot decided to observe in silence for a while. It wasn’t really Packy’s style for as far Adina had any experience with the AI, but it was a welcome improvement if so. She slowly readied herself for moving the RCU around when Packy’s overly excited voice came on the speaker.

“How are you feeling, Adina?” Adina knew it was too good to be true to think the shrinkbot was going to let her do her job in peace.
“Like I’m being sexually harassed.” Adina didn’t need to think long about a response, she had actually given it some thought before hand and hoped the ridiculous comment would throw the AI off. Her response left the cockpit completely silent for several sweet seconds, Adina’s plan had not been without success.
“I am a virtual presence without gender, Adina.” Packy noted.
“You talking isn’t helping me feel any less harassed, Packy. Why don’t you turn yourself off?” Adina knew there was no way in hell Packy would do anything of the sort, but that didn’t make it any more enjoyable to try.
“I’m sorry, Adina. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Packy unintentionally referenced a fictional AI. “I do not believe you are being honest with me. Your brain is directly interfaced with a cybernetic processing core. It knows I am virtual and without gender, therefore you must be aware of my inability to sexually harass. Thus, you are not sincere.”
“Bravo, Packy. Bravo.” Adina wasn’t very impressed by Packy’s ability to reason logically and her response was drenched in sarcasm not even an AI could misinterpret.
“I take it your comment is meant as a metaphor for how you truly feel?” Packy’s shrinkbot routines were no doubt running at full capacity.
“Yeah, you do that.” Adina had about enough of this inane nonsense already and began piloting the RCU around instead of paying too much attention towards Packy.

“So…” Packy said after a while, “I suppose this means you are not feeling well?”
“You’re still talking, so, yeah, that’s about correct.” Adina responded while looking at the data she was retrieving from one of the wrecked robots she had walked up to.
“It is imperative to my ability to operate as your companion to know how you responded to the drop.” Packy decided to be clear about the subject.
“It was nothing like a simulation, but if it makes you happy, you should log that though the experience wasn’t exactly comfortable it is not what is bothering me.” Adina knew any more messing with the Artificial Companion was only going to lead to it giving her a bigger headache than it already did.
“Noted. And I take it I am what IS bothering you.”
“Your deductive skills are truly amazing, Packy. I salute you.”
“Noted.”

Luckily that was the last Packy had to say for a while, leaving Adina to her exploration of a forlorn Tesslebeck. She rummaged through the remains of an age old battle between the forces of the UEF, Aeon Illuminate and several Cybran units. If the remains found at her drop site was any indication of what she would find around the entire planet she could hardly imagine what else she might find scattered across the planet wide battlefield.

Hello again, my faithful readers. Yes, all.. uh... ZERO of you. I'm sure you've been DYING to find out what happens next, huh? Luckily for you folks, I've managed to conjure it up, so go ahead and enjoy.

Also, I noticed a helpful little topic inside this fanfiction part of the forum about the SupCom timeline and noticed that the UEF didn't come around until a bit over 400 years into the war. This conflicted a bit with what I wrote previously, and I didn't want any of that. Now, instead of the story being 600 years before the end of the Infinite War its 400 years. But yeah, its more of a technical detail than really relevant.

Eitherway, if at some point in the distant future there is someone who actually reads this stuff, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. I'm taking some liberties so I wonder what people's opinions are. Whether your loving it or hating it, all input is appreciated, really. I'm probably going to ignore all the bad and take all the good, but hey, who doesn't like to think they're the most awesomest person in the world?

Uh, yeah, so...

Chapter 2: Pattir’s Edge

“No way.”
“It’s perfectly safe.” Packy reassured Adina.
“As safe as a day trip to hell, maybe.” Adina wasn’t having any of it.
“There’s no excessive heat or flames.”
“Not literally, Packy. Besides, hell is fictional.”
“Noted.” Packy’s over excited voice was really out of place for his dry choice of words, and only added to the annoyance he represented. “I had expected as much, coming from you, yet there is little reason to think of this region as uncomfortable or dangerous.” Packy insisted.
“Look, I’m not doing it. Get over it.”
“Your lack of dedication for this mission is disappointing.” Packy paused before adding, “And logged for future evaluation.”
“Hey!” Adina did not like where this was going, “That’s a load of crap and you know it!”

The RCU came to an abrupt halt in the middle of a grassy field and unceremoniously dropped to its knees. A moment later Adina opened the hatch while muttering loudly. A ladder automatically extended down to the ground which Adina used to slide down in an attempt to get this over with as fast as possible.
“Remember!” Packy raised his voice to make sure Adina couldn’t possibly miss his ‘friendly advice’, “Get a good feeling of the planet for your report.”
“What a waste of time…” Adina muttered. She walked a good distance away from the RCU to at least make it look like she was trying to do as was asked from her. As if the precise equipment onboard her command unit wasn’t going to be far better equipped for ‘getting a good feeling’ of this dump. Like she didn’t experience Tesslebeck from inside the cockpit closely enough, did she not see the surroundings on her monitors? Can’t she just read the wind speed on a display instead of needing to feel it? Did she really need to smell the stench of destruction first hand? Was that relevant!?

Well… Alright, it wasn’t all that bad. Being able to stretch one’s legs on one of these missions was a luxury few could afford. Not every planet had been terraformed before the war and during a normal recon mission there really wasn’t any time for getting out of the RCU. Nonetheless it was still very much a stupid idea and Packy was a complete moron. But command found AC’s to be mission critical so she was expected to listen to its advice. They already thought she was some kind of loose cannon, so she really couldn’t afford to completely ignore Packy. If only that was possible…

No, in the end it was actually pretty nice to set foot on Tesslebeck. It was a quiet place, unlike the constant buzzing that went on inside the RCU and even quieter than the station she had been living on for the past few months. The brushing of the wind against the landscape was pretty soothing, but that was all the sound there was. All the life on Tesslebeck was contained to a bunch of plants and probably some microbes, but no real animal life to speak of. Adina had already been on Tesslebeck for 7 hours, though it felt a lot shorter. She could have sworn the first signs of the sun became visible on the horizon several hours ago, and it still wasn’t going anywhere. Getting used to the planet’s slow revolutions was going to take a while, the idea of staying on a planet that takes over three earth days to turn around its axis is an odd one. Its gravity was also higher than earth gravity, but so was the planet on which she had spent most of her childhood and it actually felt comfortable to Adina, instead of the lighter gravity inside the station.

“Adina, long range scanners have detected a high altitude anomaly.” Nia’s voice disrupted Adina’s thoughts, forcing her to suddenly pay attention to her left arm. She had a small screen on her arm showing some information coming straight from the RCU. Adina’s suit was filled with all sorts of equipment which put her in direct contact with her command unit, it allowed her to control the RCU remotely to an extent, though she was pretty sure the idea behind the device was to make sure Nia always knew where she was. In case of her capture or death it was the AI’s job to make sure the RCU self destructed.
“Is it heading towards us?” Adina immediately worried she might get detected. Despite the stealth technology the RCU could still be spotted by a keen eye.
“No, Adina, the anomaly passed through the outer edge of my sensors and I can no longer detect it.” Nia reported. The RCU had a very limited radar range, but it did have two very precise long range scanners which were used for getting detailed information from a distance during recon missions. It was standard protocol for the RCU to set these scanners to broadly scan the surroundings whenever they weren’t used for detailed reconnaissance. Nonetheless, the scanners detecting anything, especially an object flying at high altitude, was lucky.
“What was it?” Adina inquired while rushing back to the RCU, since her small screen wasn’t giving her the information she had hoped for.
“The data is inconclusive.”
“But it was some sort of automated recon plane, right?”
“There is a high probability of the anomaly being an automated aircraft, though I can not speculate to its purpose, or its faction for that matter.”
Adina might have an AI linked to her brain, but that didn’t meant she could understand the plain variant any better. She had gotten used to acting on hunches and making predictions based on both what she knew and what she expected, in fact the Cybran military made sure all their pilots did this to a high degree. The RCU’s artificial intelligence refused to veer from the facts and though it could process a great deal of scenarios simultaneously it was often unable to come to a conclusion when dealing with incomplete information. It was quite frustrating, but it turns out AIs do not guess.
“Do we know where it was headed?” Adina pondered out loud as she began ascending the ladder back into the RCU.
“I forwarded its coordinates and heading to your display.” Nia pointed out. Adina could have guessed as much, but she had merely glanced over the screen and dismissed its information almost immediately as not of incredible importance.
“I’m kind of busy climbing back into the cockpit, would you mind giving me the short version verbally?”
“As you wish. It was approximately heading south to south-west.”
“Are there any notes about the area it was heading towards in our mission database?”
“Retrieving relevant data…”

Nia was probably scouring through the database in its entirety for anything that might refer to what lies to their south. Adina would have been more than satisfied with the AI looking through the headlines, surely the most obscure references to this area weren’t going to be important at this point. But there really was no point in worrying about it, Adina knew this was the way these AIs work and no amount of wishing was going to change that. But with a bit of luck Nia had done the necessary number crunching by the time she could climb back into the cockpit. Trying to determine the next course of action was a lot easier when not climbing a very tall ladder and with several screens filled with information to work with.

“Did you enjoy your time outside?” Packy harassed Adina the second her head poked out above the ladder. The damned shrinkbot wouldn’t even let her come back into the cockpit in peace before bothering her with its questions. There really wasn’t any stopping Packy, as long as Nia was busy with the data and there was nothing that took precedent the artificial companion was free to do his job. Still, Adina found the damned thing to be rude and annoying and decided to ignore its question while she hoisted herself into the cockpit and sealed the hatch back up. She managed to sit back down into her chair and brought up a map of the region before Packy asked again.
“Did you enjoy your time outside, Adina?”
“Any time spent away from you is enjoyable, Packy. You know that.”
“Yes, you have alluded to that a great number of times already.” Packy apparently was well aware of Adina’s disposition, but unfortunately that didn’t change a thing. “But it stands to reason you might prefer it in your cockpit, if the outside was such a ‘hell’ as you said previously.”
Adina sighed, damn Packy’s shrinkbot routines. It wasn’t like he could help it, it was his job to analyze everything Adina says, but it would have been nice if shutting up should have been a part of its programming. “Look, I was-“
“Data processed.” Nia interrupted as she flooded several screens with data about nearby landmarks and events.
“Oh, good job Nia!” Adina was so very glad to hear those words. “Anything out of the ordinary?”
“There are several noteworthy events surrounding the region as well as the remains of a city. Old Cybran reconnaissance logs show an unusually high amount of Aeon transport vessels coming and going from this region. More than could be expected with a city of Pattir’s Edge’s size. Cybran command could never determine the reason for the Aeon’s commitment to Pattir’s Edge and its surroundings. The records state a possible reason might be that the site has been considered sacred. This is highly illogical.”
“The Aeon’s aren’t known for their ability to reason objectively, Nia. Could you show me this city in some more detail?” Adina could feel the ruins of this city were where the plane was headed, there was nothing else noteworthy to the south. It didn’t take Nia long to display a picture of the city at the time of battle surrounding the city.
“A Cybran spy plane managed to take a series of pictures of the city while the UEF besieged it during the last two years of The Clash on Tesslebeck. The Aeons had heavily fortified the city, proving too much for the UEF offensive for over two months.” Nia clarified while Adina studied the city. Even from the high altitude at which the picture was taken it was clear that the battle for Pattir’s Edge had been massive. Parts of the city were aflame while UEF armies trickled into the outer rim of the city though being significantly slowed by Aeon bombers. It was only a single picture, frozen in time, but there could be no doubt about the violent nature of the battle it depicted.
“Pattir’s Edge was one of several Aeon cities which its inhabitants refused to evacuate.” Nia continued, “Estimates indicate over 120,000 people were killed over the course of the siege. Later ground reconnaissance shows the city nearly completely reduced to rubble after the final UEF push and the subsequent Aeon counterattack. During the final stages of The Clash the Aeons never attempted to rebuild the city, though it had fallen securely in their hands. This is most likely the reason why it escaped being nuked in the end.”

Adina had heard more than enough to know where to direct her RCU next and strapped herself in for the ride towards the city. If there was anyone else down on this planet -and Adina never doubted there was- there was a good chance one of them was an Aeon who decided to hide in the remains of ‘sacred’ Pattir’s Edge.
RCU-937 swiftly traversed the rolling hills, scattered with debris and the occasional bush. The piloting of the terrain wasn’t something that required Adina’s full attention, so she let Nia do the walking. The AI estimated the safest route towards the city would take them somewhere between six or seven hours to reach the outskirts of the city. This allowed Adina with plenty of time to study the logs regarding Pattir’s Edge. The estimations of mass and energy consumed by the battle were astronomical and far out of Adina’s imagination. Cybran command made a point of using its vastly superior artificial intelligence to run all sorts of practically useless simulations. Well, that was Adina’s impression of half the information she was skimming through anyway. No doubt it had its uses on the larger strategic front, but to a single RCU pilot it wasn’t very practical.

After half an hour Adina already felt like she wasn’t doing anything useful, but it was better than doing nothing. In fact, if she decided to twiddle her thumbs Packy would no doubt come down on her with full force. Sure, he had been gradually annoying her as she read through the reports, but it was kind of like an itch that was easily satisfied by a good scratch once in a while. His questions and comments didn’t take a lot to answer and so Adina just said something back and that’d be that. It was almost a welcome distraction from the boring reports if Packy wasn’t such a pain in the behind. Though, he did give her a useful idea.
“How many more reports are there to read?” Packy inquired.
“A whole bunch…” Adina responded, not particularly caring for Packy’s question and just carrying on.
“At this rate, I doubt there are enough to fill 6 hours worth. You’re really speeding through these files.”
“Yeah, well, if there was anything that deserved my attention to detail I’d be glad, but it is the way it is.”
“If there’s nothing of interest in there, maybe you should consider putting those files away.”
“Right.” Adina scoffed, “And then what?”
“You could take a nap, Nia will get you to your destination and wake you, or whenever there is a problem.” Packy suggested.

Adina really hadn’t thought about resting. She had been roaming the planet for nearly eight hours, and she wouldn’t be anywhere near the city for another six. Conceivably she’d be getting tired at that point, since she had been awake for several hours before arriving on Tesslebeck as well. Even so, it wouldn’t be a problem, the cybernetic implants had a great variety of uses, including administering useful chemicals into a symbiont’s body. These could do a number of things, including fighting the symptoms of gradually becoming tired. Eventually even a symbiont would need to get some sleep, but with these implants she would be able to function for two days straight without feeling the strain. It still wasn’t advised to use these chemicals if it wasn’t needed and she had plenty of time to kill, she might as well do it while resting.
“You know what, Packy. I think you’ve got something there.” Adina said, surprisingly -even to herself- it was devoid of sarcasm for once.
“Noted.” Packy responded the same way he always did, though even he must have been somehow happy about Adina approving of his suggestion for once, even if he was an AI. Perhaps not ‘happy’ but at least aware of the fact, his shrinkbot routines were quite sophisticated after all.

Adina didn’t let Packy bother her for too long, she slowly let the back of her chair lower so she could lie down comfortably. Falling asleep wasn’t very hard for Adina, after lying back and closing her eyes a mild sedative was released throughout her system and she gently drifted into a comfortable sleep. As she dreamt of piloting her RCU across a war torn Pattir’s Edge during the siege, Nia maneuvered the RCU through a gradually meandering river valley, away from any possible prying eyes. Slowly but surely, klick after klick, the city neared. By the time RCU-937 had reached the destination Adina had set for it, the sun was still fairly low on the horizon, as if the Tesslebeckian day had only just begun.

“Rise and shine.” Nia’s warm motherly voice had never sounded any more so than it did just as Adina opened her eyes again after sleeping for six hours. The RCU had reached its destination and in response Nia told Adina’s implants to wake her up. Under the influence of the chemicals it didn’t take long for Adina to adjust and even before her pilot’s chair had fully righted itself she was ready to go.
“Have we arrived at the outskirts of Pattir’s Edge?” She asked while looking at the data on the screens surrounding her.
“Yes, Adina, we are nearly 15 minutes away from the city limits.” Nia reported, “This small valley is a good location for the construction of a beacon.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Adina agreed. She should take the time to construct a beacon and upload it with all the information they had gathered so far. It wasn’t a lot, certainly nothing spectacular, but it was standard procedure to produce a beacon within 80 hours of dropping and especially before any potentially dangerous endeavors. Going down to Pattir’s Edge wasn’t going to be without risk, though without a doubt worth the trouble. She might find the source of the plane that passed her earlier, or perhaps catch a glimpse of what it was looking for. Either way, there were always the ruins of an Aeon city which no doubt held a wealth of information in its own right.

She fired up the nano-engineering suite of her RCU but was left pondering if she really wanted to stand around and build the beacon herself. It’d take about ten minutes, but she could construct a mobile engineering platform to do it for her while she proceeded with the far more interesting stuff. Normally spending more resources than necessary was considered a bad call, and she would waste a bit by constructing an engineering unit, but she could always have it reclaim the debris in the area, of which there was plenty. She really didn’t see a reason not to and finally decided to deploy an engineer.

Two minutes later the small robot was done and deployed itself, the small insect-like creature sprouted four legs and raised its scorpionesque tail. The nano-engineering module was installed in the flexible tail and it also had two small floating drones which helped during construction. As soon as the RCU was finished with transferring the required resources to the engineer it spat out its little drones and began work on the beacon. It’d probably take it about half an hour, but it was very unlikely to be discovered before then, or even after. The beacon was designed to be small and would only activate at a specified time when it was known Cybran command was standing by to receive a pulse of data from it. With only the slightest of energy signatures coming from the beacon until it was time to send its data it was as good as invisible. The engineer was at more risk to be discovered, but the engineer was completely dwarfed by the ones ACUs frequently deployed in combat making it hard to spot as well. Adina entrusted the engineer with the data that she wanted sent through the beacon and then she was finally on her way to Pattir’s Edge.

She decided to do the last bit of walking herself taking the opportunity to take a good look at the city as she closed in on it.
“Nia, make sure the scanners are looking at the city at all times. I want to know about whatever is in there.” Adina wanted to be sure she wasn’t in for any surprises.
“Naturally. However, the city is filled with a variety of signals making it more difficult.”
“What do you mean? What signals?” At no time during any simulations was there a problem with scanning a city for hostiles or other sources of interest.
“The city is still being powered, at least partially, the fluctuating power spikes are too random to filter out and are cluttering up sensor data.”
“Oh, come on! You can’t see inside the city?” This was a terribly unfair load of crap if you asked Adina.
“No, Adina, I can. Large energy signatures should not be a problem, it is the smaller ones which will be almost impossible to notice.”
“What about our radar?”
“Radar should have less trouble pinpointing nearby units.”

Unfortunately the RCU’s radar only had a range of 800 meters, which meant it was practically useless on the open battlefield and of only minimal use in a city-like environment. Adina had the option of boosting it by 100% but that would compromise her stealth. The same counted for her laser cannon, its default damage was pitiful, but increasing its output would make her RCU light up to anyone with any kind of scanning equipment. Luckily her two powerful scanners made up for her otherwise gimped command unit and had so far always been able to steer her clear of any trouble. Well, during simulations at least. Regardless, her built in stealth was her greatest asset, no robot would detect her unless she got really close, because they were known to rely on energy signatures for their targeting. The only real worry were spy planes and other reconnaissance specific units, or a very keen commander who liked to watch feeds from his army in the field.

In the end, she’d have to be careful once inside the city, no one could possible guess what lurked within its partially destroyed buildings. The ghosts that inhabited the burned out structures and easily the ticked-off hibernating units of long forgotten armies. She was bound to run into a few hazards, she found still twitching robots cluttering the fields before the city. Aproaching UEF warbots, shelled to death by the deadly Aeon artillery hidden within the city. It was a testament to their design that some of these machines were still functioning, at least to a tiny degree, especially after all this time. Adina had crossed several fields of battle during her short visit to Tesslebeck already, but certainly the outskirts of Pattir’s Edge were the most ravaged so far. All the debris was making it hard to traverse the terrain. The closer she got the more she had to climb over wreckages in order to keep going forward. She had spotted a make-shift road leading into the city, probably a path created by the UEF by clearing out its own wreckages in order to continue sending troops towards the city. At some points the wrecks piled up three units high, simply pushed aside without any regard in order to keep the gears of war in motion.

Adina could have used the path in order to get to the city faster, but her training made her wary of the obvious routes. If she was inside the city, she’d be sure to keep an eye on these roads, in case someone else was heading her way. She was being slowed down by her more scenic route, but at least she was confident she’d remain undetected.
“Incoming; multiple aircrafts to the north!” Nia warned Adina out of the blue. Adina was just climbing over the husk of a siege tank as the warning came through. The scanners had picked something up, and it was only a few klicks away. Adina immediately pivoted the RCU in order to look at the northern sky.
“Are they-?” Before Adina could even finish her question it was clear these aircrafts were not high altitude recon crafts, but she couldn’t immediately make out what was coming for her. The outlines however seemed quite clearly UEF. “What are we looking at here, Nia?”
“The database indicates a UEF transport and four escorts are approaching the city. Curiously, their designs are several decades old.” Nia explained.
“Now that you mention it, that looks like a Hopper.” Adina noticed the design of the transport.
“Correct, Adina, a C4 Star Hopper Heavy Transport. It is escorted by four Bernard Gunships. Furthermore, scanners indicate 18 smaller units inside the Hopper’s cargo container.”
“Those are Bernards? Never thought I’d see any of those in action… Why do you think the UEF is using these obsolete units?” Adina wondered.
“I can not speculate on the matter, Adina.” Of course, Nia’s response was to be expected, but it was really odd to find these units deployed here. Tesslebeck was full of surprises.

“What are you going to do now?” Packy wanted to know as they stood there watching the five UEF crafts flying into the city.
“Clearly mission parameters indicate this needs to be investigated.” Adina said, though, the mission parameters were intentionally vague to allow for the RCU pilot to determine what did and what did not warrant further investigation.
“I hope you know what you are doing, failing to hold out for at least a day will be a great disappointment for Cybran Command.”
“What are you saying? Command would be sad to see me die so soon? I think I’d be sadder if I screw up.” Adina pointed out to her ‘companion’.
“You wouldn’t be sad, you’d be dead.” Packy retorted.
“Uh… Yeah… Noted.”

Only a moment later the Hopper and its escorts began descending into the outskirts of the city, though instead of landing the Hopper released its clamps around the cargo container and let it drop to the surface before turning around. Two of the Bernards followed the Hopper back north, while the other two remained near the container.

Just noticed this story. You've made a good start on this story. I don't think we've had any stories from this far back in the SupCom time line yet.
Welcome to the forums in general, and Fan Fiction in particular. I think you'll find that quite a few people read, but don't comment. Don't let that throw you off. What you've shown so far is pretty interesting and quite readable. I hope to see more of this story.

Marc

Why, thank you Marc. It's good to be here.

I'm sure there's plenty of people reading without commenting, I just like complaining. I also like being lazy, so that's partially why I am starting so far back. On the other hand, it means the stuff that'll happen in the future is of no use to me as I write this stuff, so I need to be creative. Though, I don't think that'll be a problem.

I should really be writing other things, but with the new game I just got inspired I guess. My posting might slow down at some point, but for now I've got plenty of ideas I'm quite excited about.

Yeah, sounds soooooooo much like total annihilation. Infinite War=3000 years war. "Their WAr is the only way" & "Exctinction"= Complete Annihilation is only way. http://www.tauniverse.com

When does chris taylor plan on getting the ta license?
So i dont have to sit on my *** hoping it will come flying out of midair.

Dammit chris taylor i'm ready to give atari hell and im not as patient as 5 months ago.....

Ahh whatever is SupCom 2 cheaper online or in stores, any advice/suggestions?

Wtf Cybran Commander? Like Cybran Mokeylord or something?

It's a decent story but there are a lot of grammatical errors that really should be fixed.

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*trolls*

May i ask, why such the longass post?