This is the prologue to a hard military sci-fi concept that I started about 5 years ago. I keep toying with idea of going back to it and upon re-reading it I noticed that it hasn’t aged terribly. Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments!

All was dark.

Fawkes secondary sight filled the darkness with assorted information relating to the mission, various maps and status indicators.  This was squad 13’s first combat mission, and to say hewas nervous was about as much of an understatement as could be imagined.

A loud crash rang in Fawkes ear, followed by the slightest feeling of acceleration.  His insertion pod moved into position in the firing chamber.  He attempted to turn his head, but like every other part of him, it was held completely still by the nano-foam that filled his small, metallic coffin.

Any second now Fawkes would experience about five g’s of acceleration followed by about a second of weightlessness.  The grand finale would be when his pod struck the enemy battle cruiser.  This was assuming he made it that far.   For all he knew, the dropship was already destroyed and he was trapped in the chamber.  If it wasn’t, all it would take to end his short life would be a single shot from the cruiser.  That would be the easy way out.  The dropship’s AI could get hacked and fire him into deep space, which would be a very long and painful death.  And lonely as well.  That part would probably be the worst for him, considering that he hasn’t been alone since the day he was born.

The random thoughts were interrupted by the sudden feeling that he was being crushed from the feet up.  Five g’s of acceleration was brutal on anyone, no matter how strong, or how modified for deep space they were.  He felt nauseous, the seconds of acceleration feeling like hours.  Finally, he was weightless again.  That comfort lasted only momentarily.

Every bone in Fawkes’ body felt like it was bending and crushing as the capsule made impact with the cruiser.  The cruiser’s armor melted like ice under the extreme heat of the capsule’s entrance bit.  He opened his eyes and readied himself for whatever was to come.

The capsule opened at Fawke’s feet and launched him into the enemy battle cruiser.  The nano foam dissipated as he was forced through it.  He hit the deck and latched on with his boots.  His right gauntlet altered form to take the shape of a beam rifle.  He quickly scanned the area in front of him, marking any potential targets.  The area was devoid of hostiles, a few drones floated destroyed in the weightlessness.  Churchill was in front of Fawkes, showing a green aura to identify as a friend, his nanite gauntlets forming a shield in one hand and heavy particle cannon in the other.  He had made short work of the few drones in the mere seconds before Fawkes inserted.

Fawkes didn’t bother checking his rear.  His secondary sight gave him a quick notification that the first team had successfully breached and covered the opposite direction.  His counterpart in first team, Darwin, had breached simultaneously as Fawkes.  She had assisted the team one point man, Lennon, in scrapping any drones on their angle.

Fawkes released his boot grips and pushed himself into cover behind Churchill’s right shoulder.  As soon as he clamped his boots onto the grating again, the ceiling exploded in a burst of foam, dropping another of his teammates behind them.  Fawkes stayed focused on the corridor in front of him, waiting for the entirety of the squad to breach the cruiser.  After thirty seconds of aiming into darkness the entire squad, separated into two teams to cover both angles, had breached and taken positions inside the enemy cruiser.  A final breach hit the hull, dropping their squad leader, Valens, in the middle of the steady defensive lines.

{Form up, 13!} Valens’ voice came through the squad’s wireless channel.  One by one, the team formed up on Valens’ position, covering each other’s flanks as they pushed through the zero gravity hallways.  Churchill and Lennon fell in last, their nano shields shifting back into their gauntlet forms.

Once squad 13 was formed up on its lead, Valens started into deployments.  {Richard, take first team down the right-hand corridor.  Spencer, you and second team will take the left-hand corridor.  Primary objectives are data terminals.  First and foremost, we are here to gather recon on the enemy forces plans.  Download anything that can help the fleet.  Secondary objective is to cripple anything that could get this ship back into a fight with The Half Moon.}

Our battleship, The Half Moon, had already crippled the enemy ship and was awaiting the retrieval of the three squads deployed to board the vessel.  We had a strict timeline of 50 minutes from breach to gather intel, scuttle the ship, and proceed to extraction.  In the worst case scenario, that the enemy vessel would start fighting again or try to flee, it would be destroyed, whether the squads were out or not.

Valens continued over the wireless.  {Rally point for extraction is the launch bay two klicks from our current position on the port side of the ship.}  The entire squad’s secondary vision lit up with a wireframe of the ship, highlighting the extraction point.  {If you aren’t there in exactly 45 minutes, we will be leaving without you.  I strongly suggest being there.}

There was no humor in his tone.  The entire team knew they were completely expendable and the safety of The New Moon came before all else.  Mission timers lit up throughout the squad’s vision, just another reminder of their very real deadline.

{Let’s get this done, 13.  No screw-ups, by the book, let’s get in, and then get home.  Get moving!}

Both teams broke their wireless connection, released from the grating and preceded on mission.  Fawke’s feel in behind Churchill, primary marksman and pointman respectively.  Behind Fawkes was their team leader, Spencer, and bringing up the rear were Newton, medic, and Thatcher, electronic warfare.  Team one launched in an identical pattern, except for being heavy one squad leader in Valens.

Team two moved as one creature, their wireless synced up in all their motions, sharing their vision and ensuring every angle was covered from potential threats.  Being in zero gravity, the enemy could come from any direction, and the odds of this mission ending without any serious contact were non-existent.

Churchill came to rest at an intersection and sent a quick all stop signal to the squad.  Fawkes pushed himself into the wall, sending the signal for his boots to grapple him in position.  His right gauntlet switched form into a heavy particle repeater, changing shape in seconds.  He brought his left hand onto the newly formed front grip and took aim ahead of him into the intersection ahead.  His active sensors swept everything in range, quickly giving the all clear.  All five members of the team sent the all clear signal and they continued on mission.

The warship was massive, easily over a kilometer in length and half that in diameter.  The ship had the shape of a massive teardrop, with a few minor imperfections marring it’s otherwise flawlessly smooth hull.  These imperfections were nothing short of instruments of death, various beam and particle weaponry.  Small honeycomb shaped openings, each a few meters wide, were in arrays of a dozen or so on the front half of the ship.  The warship’s only physical weaponry would emerge from these holes in the form of massive flurries of missiles, each capable of relativistic speeds.  Deadly at any range, these beasts were best dealt with before they even knew they were engaged.

The interior of the ship was no less daunting.  It was filled with mazes of corridors for the thousands of drones to go about their duties, not unlike ants working together for the well-being of their colony.  These seemingly pointless passageways were squeezed in between the various systems that actually ran the ship.  The only exception was the rear quarter of the ship, where the massive matter/anti-matter destruction generator made its home.  A seemingly endless source of energy, it was capable of pushing the deadly vessel at almost 7 g’s acceleration for the entirety of a voyage.  While it may have left its point of origin almost two cycles ago absolute time, it had probably only experienced a few months’ worth of time.

Controlling it all was an artificial intelligence in a processing core the size of a warehouse.  Capable of controlling all the drones, the weapon systems, and all the ship’s functions simultaneously with an almost instantaneous transmission of information, this AI was the epitome of efficiency.  Fast, deadly, and intelligent, these vessels were a plague on the fleet that Hawkes and his family of soldiers were charged with protecting.

And now, here they were, buried in the belly of the beast with the ultimate goal of stealing its brain.  The ship clearly knew what the three squads were planning, and the fact that Fawkes and his team had yet to make any real enemy contact was nothing short of terrifying.  Either this particular vessel was incredibly arrogant, not feeling the invading soldiers were worth it’s time, incredibly stupid, in which case they were the ones wasting time, or planning something incredibly painful for the pests that were infesting it.  As much as he was hoping for one of the first two options, he wasn’t so naive to think it was anything other than the third, slightly less survivable, plan that was underway.  Fawkes knew it was just a matter of time before the fighting started, and he had a terrible feeling running through his body that not all of his team would be making it out of here, if any at all.

Fawkes secondary vision flashed a display of their location, alerting them they they were rapidly approaching their first waypoint.  Their first target was a drone manufacturing bay, where they would undoubtedly find network access, and right there with it a regiment of defenders waiting to remove the small invading team from their ship.

The team slowed their glide through the corridor, each attaching to the nearest grating and taking up an offensive stance.  They approached they bay slowly, boots gripping and ungripping with each step, the team walking on the different surfaces of the corridor. 

Churchill breached the bay first, shield and particle cannon at the ready.  His nanite shield was spread to full berth, covering his entire front with just enough of an opening for his cannon to have a full range of fire if necessary.  Fawkes followed on the opposite floor, his heavy repeater leading the way into the massive room.  His secondary vision highlighted a few different outcroppings or machines to use as cover in the event of a firefight.  His vision switched through the different visual spectrums, compiling as much information as possible to prevent an ambush.

Fawkes’ vision dropped into the electromagnetic spectrum and he was blinded almost instantly.  His vision switched back to the regular spectrum to prevent any serious damage.  It was just in time for him to see the entire room come to life.

The walls tore apart, taking hundreds of tiny forms.  Each drone unfolded as it pushed itself off the walls, showing their devilish forms.  Each block rapidly changed into a metallic cylinder with two arm-like appendages extending from each side.  The right arm was tipped with a repeater, easily deflected by shields, but deadly if it hit a lightly armored spot.  The left arm came to an end at a massive three fingered claw, designed for lifting and moving tasks, but easily capable of crushing anything it got a hold of.  A large sensor array covered the front of the torso, while two fully articulating thruster tipped wings extruded from the top of the machine.  The drone had a prehensile tail which terminated with a drilling laser.  The beam was pretty useless against the nanite armor, but there had been known cases of a drone expending all of its energy in a single burst which could quickly end the life of an unexpecting soldier.  Although the drones were not too deadly by themselves, in large numbers they were undeniably devastating.  And this was clearly a large number of them that they were up against.

The five of them hit cover as quickly as they could in the absence of gravity.  The drones danced through the air, lasers and particle bursts filling the room.  The drones were incredibly graceful in this environment, one brilliant mind spread between dozens of tiny bodies.  They moved as one and fought with a determination of a swarm of hornets defending a threatened nest.

Fawkes slammed into a small alcove amidst the flurry of enemy fire.  He fired off a few quick bursts as he rapidly poked his head above cover.  A quick scan showed him that the rest of the squad had found similar areas to defend themselves, with the exception of Churchill, his massive shield and cannon turning him into a walking tank.  Enemy fire bounced off his shield harmlessly, as each shot of his cannon took a few drones out of the fight.  Each blast from the massive weapon reduced any drone that was unlucky enough to be caught in its firing arc to a cloud of metallic dust.

Fawkes switched his heavy repeater into two smaller variants, one for each arm. The nanites climbed up his back and rapidly started to cover his head, combining with one another to create a rugged, metallic carapace snuggly around his facial features.  Two sections of nanites became transparent to allow vision through his new armor segment. Underneath his helmet, his face showed no emotion, his mind processing countless options for how he would approach his relentless opponent. After a few long seconds, Fawkes burst into action.

Fawkes rapidly emerged from his temporary refuge, both weapons raised ahead of him.  His vision lit up with the outlines of the countless drones that were still remained.  Each of the deadly robots was glowing with a red halo, making them easily identifiable for him to target.  Every second an outline would flash, followed by a burst of highly energized particles from his repeaters, travelling near the speed of light.  As suddenly as the outline appeared, it was removed from this existence.  His arms moved unnaturally fast, both hands firing at different drones simultaneously.  After the first ten drones fell in a matter of seconds, the remainder began to turn their attention towards him, recognizing him as a severe detriment to the repulsion of the invaders.

The drones rapidly converged into one massive group, no longer multiple scattered weapons, but one deadly column of destruction.  They moved as one deadly mechanical snake, swimming rapidly through the thin atmosphere of the large room towards Fawkes.  Abandoning their useless ranged tactics, the drones were now set on tearing him limb from limb in melee combat.

Beams and particle bursts tore holes in the approaching drones, the squad attempting to draw the relentless machines off before they reached Fawkes.  Undaunted by his impending death, he raised both repeaters and began a full automatic release of the weapons.  Streams of particles emerged from the weapons, tearing into the approaching swarm.  Drone after drone was torn to shreds, only to have its scrap pushed out of the way by the countless replacements that followed.  His arms moved ever so slightly, getting the full range of damage out of his repeaters.  His hands began to burn inside the weapons as the heat from continued use grew.  He locked the pain of the burning flesh out of his mind, continuing to slow the advance of the wall of drones with his unending fire.

No more than a few meters from Fawkes, the drones pressed their attack, coming in rapidly for the kill.  No more than a few dozen of the machines remaining, this suicide attack was merely an attack of attrition; they knew they can’t win, but they could increase the odds of success in the coming battles.  The machines knew that eliminating him reduced the squad’s ability to conduct effective combat operations significantly.  As always with their robotic nemesis, it always became a war of numbers.

Fawkes had mere seconds left before he was swallowed by the horde.  He had no feeling left in his hands, the nerves had either been turned off to prevent the pain from slowing him down, or they were just no longer there.  He knew that he had to make these moments count if he wanted to survive this assault.  His chain of weapons fire came to a sudden end, a cloud of burnt flesh and nanites covering the two repeaters.  He raised his arms in front of him, bringing his forearms together with incredible force.  Simultaneously he dropped to one knee.  The nanites burst into motion, anchoring his legs to the grating, his repeaters melting into a massive semicircular shield, the bottom edges tearing into the hull beneath him and digging into the vessel.  The edges extended no more than a few centimeters behind him, covering the entire front of his body in a massive metallic bubble.  His arms were braced in front of his face, the nanites firmly attaching the shield to his arms.  He had used far too much energy to produce this barrier at an incredible speed, appearing out of nothingness into a protective screen over the course of a second and a half.  His eyes began to roll into his head, his body barely having enough power to keep moving, his mind fighting to keep himself from collapsing under the sudden and massive energy drain.  He clenched his teeth and prepared for the impact.

The drones made the contact with the force of a meteor.  Each one that hit the half bubble slashed with fury, trying to tear it open and destroy its contents.  As soon as one hit it was thrown out of the way by the following drone, hitting the same spot, trying to weaken strategic locations on the shield.  As the wave hit the shield they were launched aside, their role in the attack completed.  Fawkes squad mates picked off the recovering drones, keeping them from tearing into the exposed area in the open back of his makeshift defense.

Fawkes struggled with each and every hit.  They were striking his shield at multiple g’s of acceleration, each hit stressing the grating he was anchored to.  He could feel his leg anchors tearing free of the grating, the extreme pressure of the countless impacts bending and ripping the metal.  His shield was tearing the floor where it had dug in almost a meter deep in multiple locations.  The grating was curling over itself where the anchors didn’t break free, his body having been pushed almost a half meter by the relentless drone assault.  He felt the first drone break through the barrier, its claw tearing at his left arm, taking a few centimeters of skin as its trophy.  The nanites attempted to patch the hole rapidly, but due to the continued assaults and the extreme lack of remaining power, it couldn’t repair itself in time.  Claw after claw tore into the hole, taking more and more of his flesh with each strike.  He felt the blades make contact with the bones in his arm, the pain of it almost too much to bear.  The last thing he felt before he lost consciousness was one of the bones being cleanly severed about half way down his arm.  The shock to his nervous system stole him from a conscious state immediately; his final waking thoughts strayed from the battle back into a warmer, more pleasant time.

Fawkes mind fell back into the cycles before he realized that he existed for only one purpose, which was to fight and die.  It went back to the carefree moments in which he and his squad, when they still were referred to as family, were foolish enough to believe they were actually human.