SmackDown: MadMike's Revenge!

Redemption "Duel" 2: Dust to Dust - @bloodsword

Dust to Dust

by bloodsword

'Well, fuck!'

He slowly lifted his heavy assault rifle and clipped it onto his back and watched as the massive heavy cruiser pushed through the clouds overhead to continue towards the ground, on fire and shuddering from multiple internal explosions.

'There goes my ride home,' he thought grimly then was forced to crouch as the cruiser slamming into the ground sent a concussive ripple underfoot that nearly knocked him over. A tall, fairly fit fellow with a square jaw, a shock of dark hair, and an easy smile, it took quite a bit to knock him down. Unfortunately a dying starship was more than enough to accomplish that.

A glimpse at his HUD as he slowly straightened back up showed the flashing 'strategic repositioning' alert dominating the whole thing, the alert pasted over top his topographical map of the area.

"Isn't that the Gallant, boss?" a metallic voice asked, echoing slightly even though it sounded like it was inside his armored helmet.

"Yeah, Pike. That was the Gallant," he replied morosely. "Our ride home."

"She's dead, dude," a second metallic voice groaned in dismay.

"What are we going to do now, sarge?" a third voice asked, this one with slightly different cadence and delivery from the first two.

He paused to think that one over. Now that the Gallant was down, there was a good chance that the rest of the fleet had scattered. That, in turn, meant the Protem's operation to retake Alcair Three, the planet they were on and a strategic asset in this sector, had failed.

"Mace, can you get a signal out to one of the sentinel sats?" he asked.

A figure slipped free of the smoke swirling around him to step close. At first glance, the figure appeared alien, with it's strangely shifting face that had no recognizable feature like a mouth or a nose, just empty eye holes and it's uneasily shifting skin. But it was no alien.

"I'm getting static on every channel, sarge," it said, revealing itself as the owner of the third voice, speaking without a mouth directly into his head. "I'd say they're all shot down."

He favored Mace with a long look as he considered it's report. No sentinels confirmed it. The Protem Fleet had, indeed, withdrawn, effectively trapping them down here.

"Okay, I want everybody in," he tautly directed. He needed to make some decisions and he needed all his attention to do so, not split up keeping tabs on his scattered assets.

After seven years spent in the field with them by his side, it felt strange to call them 'assets'. They had saved his life on multiple occasions, acted as sounding boards and confidants in times of stress, and kept him company no matter where he was deployed.

Yet, the seven creatures stepping out of the smoke to join Mace and himself weren't human. Hell, they weren't even alive in the traditional sense. Connected directly into his neo-cortex via a nanite comms hub, the eight beings that now stood in a loose circle around him were some of the most sophisticated A.I.'s currently in use by the Protem military.

Constructed of high-powered nanites embedded in a polymer gel that could take any form he required of them, his companion A.I.'s were called High Efficiency Robotic Defenders or H.E.R.D.. Which, of course, made him a shepherd. It made for some jibes and quips amongst the humans-only companies, as well as the A.I.'s-only crews but he'd take the barbs and the stingers anytime to keep his personal bodyguards close.