After the End

Chapter 1

Surveillance Footage

Analyst 218016

"Okay people, pep talk time." This comes from First Lieutenant Levi Pitt, the leader of the task force scrambled by the alarmed USR in the past few hours in response to not only losing contact with the 9th Carrier Division, but also receiving its disturbing final messages. There's a straight hull with two long seats that many figures are strapped into in the dark. Besides the datapads in the walls, the ALC (Atmospheric Landing Craft) dropship pretty much represents a floating brick.

Welcome to my first analysis in a long series of analyses designed to increase the knowledge (of whoever might read these) on every f*cked up thing that happened to us. Well they're going to get pissed off again if they catch me lacking again, so I better continue.

After hearing the announcement, everyone in the dropship groans including Sergeant Jackson Brown, who is clearly not in the mood to be here. He's one among many who were suddenly woken up to be delivered to an emergency situation. He obviously has no idea what's transpired yet, only that it's bad and that they might have a chance of dying. "What a waste of time," he says to the other half awake soldiers sitting by him as Levi starts.

"As many of you know, we are part of a 30 ship fleet that'll forcibly attempt a landing to secure a foothold in Helsinki Sector, Earth. Contact was lost hours ago and the 9th Carrier Division has gone missing around the area." None of them know that he's referring to the disaster that happened hours ago and had forced him as well as all others stationed at Core System to mobilize. After all, all these people want to do is go home.

"Whatever enemy is out there, we'll take them out. Strength in numbers, my friends." Quite ironic, but they'll know soon enough. For Jackson and the others, things are a bit disorienting right now. Waking up to alarms and being shoved onto ALCs without any briefing isn't the best way to start a day. Probably why Levi's giving them his form of a briefing, without revealing too much about what they're really here for.

"Some pep talk," Jackson says before checking the map on his UI displayed in his helmet to find that the fleet is now crossing over Luna, or as they used to call it, "the Moon". He looks around the ship. People have passed out on each other, some are just conversing, and a few are accessing the outside cams. Not exactly the best army to send to a battlefield, but they don't know that yet. Looking outside, there's no sign of life in the city they're flying over, besides a couple of construction vehicles moving on the ground. Weird though, because this is one of the more developed ones, yet nothing is flying around in the sky. In other words, it's a bit too isolated.

Suddenly, a commotion comes from the soldiers looking outside. The anti-aircraft turrets positioned on the surface of the city have opened fire unexpectedly. They're meant as a deterrent though, and won't really damage the armored hulls. However, they belong to the USR and happen to be firing on USR vessels. The pilots, however, were obviously prepared for this because the fleet starts to head upwards. Then, something comes that they didn't expect: Worker Drones.

An explosion on the left makes Jackson switch his view back on, to the left cameras. Some of the drones had reached one of the ships towards the end of the formation. "What the hell is going on?" He asks Levi. Levi stays silent however, and ignores him. "They're harmless right? Can't penetrate through?", Preston Garvey, another soldier, questions. Another explosion. And another, and soon, it becomes obvious that they were detonating each other upon contact.

One gets too close to one of the thrusters and takes it out before being dissolved by it. The ship starts to fall out of formation and plummets towards the surface.

The outer doors are being cut open by the drones now.

They swarm inside, and...

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