Were he human, he'd have been smiling.
CHAPTER TWO
"Three units down!" cried a brown-clad Tank Commander to Fleet Admiral Fowl. His workstation, littered in data feeds of the action happening at the Northern Border, sat above a series of terminals occupied by over a dozen young Pilots, similarly dressed, each in control of one of the fearsome tanks now making a push for their target. Headsets linked to onboard cameras gave them a ground view and a complex interface before each allowed the Pilots to control every aspect of Abrams X operation. No living crew meant the tanks could carry more ordinance and allowed room for a repair drone that could fix minor damage and issues between engagements. Recent defense integration with the People's Republic of China had been fruitful indeed.
"Tango's getting quicker," he continued, as Admiral Fowl walked from her command seat to his desk. "We expected to be discovered but not this soon and We most def didn't expect it to drop Hammers right away. At this rate, We're totally fucked!"
"Maintain, Commander Garret!" Fowl demanded, taking a moment to calm her manner before going on. "Maintain the attack. We cannot afford to waste these Axes so make sure You get to that tower. Failure is not an option. SigInt is moving on the satellite. Our task will get easier once We've disabled it. Pay attention, and watch out for enemy defenses. Also, language?"
Having properly motivated her subordinate, Fowl spun on heel and returned to her chair. Her stride was graceful, confident. The standard fatigues she wore were a compliment to her figure and there was little doubt among the ranks that she was one of the most beautiful women in the People's Army. Despite her nervous outburst, her trust in Commander Garret was strong. Even stronger was her hope that he was free later, as she and her partner were having a spat.
Fowl was a true believer in the Century of Harmony, the social program adopted by the PRC after California, Washington, and Oregon seceded from the Union to form the new State. Its mission was simple: to expunge evil from the human heart by any means necessary. Sadness, failure, pain, even bigotry and phobias were symptoms of a Capitalist system than encouraged trampling on other people to get to the top. The only cure for the Soul-sickness of the age was a benevolent implementation of Gender and Race Communism that would ensure the welfare of the people while allowing them to pursue their truest goals without the constant, poisonous drip of insult, dissatisfaction, and apathy from leadership.
For Fowl, the People's Republic was virtually paradise on Earth. No Comrade went without a meal. Anyone unable to find work on their own was found a healthy and productive task at a plant, farm, or remotely from their home. One could walk down any street in the PRC and never hear so much as an insult and see only smiles. People were allowed to be themselves without fearing a backlash from others while fighting together to create a healthy, happier world.
The new nation was spared most of the failures of other People's Republics due to a number of fortuitous initial conditions surrounding its founding: the presence of Silicon Valley, which made easier the performance of psyops and information warfare; a largely ideologically homogeneous population, which made the adoption of the Science and Century of Harmony less painful; fertile valleys and forests, which fed and housed the populace; and its location on the West Coast, which connected the PRC to her sibling states in Asia. Those who disagreed with Harmony mostly emigrated to Texas or the United States, and far greater numbers immigrated to join the People's Republic post-war.
There were those who continued to struggle against the Century of Harmony, but they were only ignorant to its true meaning. Their misaligned Souls were unable to integrate properly into a truly healthy Collective. Most disillusioned Comrades who survived Therapy went on to lead happy lives, and those that didn't weren't fit for living. Furthermore, based on the Laws of Harmony, their Souls would, upon death, merge with the Universal Vibration and persist until the end of time within the bliss of the All That Is Possible. Thus Humanity, itself like an organism that could be harmed by infection, was scrubbed clean inside the PRC, with the irritants converted to positive Energy. Fowl embraced the Collective's hope that its Truth would free poorer Souls of the world from their selfish and ultimately meaningless ways.
The very existence of the New Republic of Texas, governed by Tango Alpha, which wasn't even human, was an affront to Harmony and even Humanity as a whole. It did them no favors that their Counter Intelligence Division constantly attacked PRC servers to deluge social media with their bigoted propaganda, spamming users with forbidden words and stupid, outdated quotes from Union and New Republic founders. Military actions taken by the NROT were purely defensive, but in the age of information warfare such activity could only be interpreted as an attack. Their absolutist, individualist ideology was a major obstacle for the growth of the Collective and, with their failure to embrace Harmony, they were a major source of Dissonance whose presence could not be allowed to persist unchallenged.
Today's mission was not only a crucial test of the new Stealthy! module, which had far outstripped expectations, but also a critical attempt to destroy up to fifty percent of Tango Alpha's consciousness by eliminating the northernmost server tower housing mainframes used by the AI to be. It would also serve a heavy blow to stubborn Texan pride to destroy the facility where Tango was created and from which it took its name, the Tango Alpha General Intelligence Laboratory, located near the northern edge of the panhandle.
The situation had looked promising. Never before had PRC forces gotten this close to the facility. Despite Commander Garret's negative attitude, the Aura in the room was still good. Each of the Pilots knew they were on the cusp of an historic victory for Harmony and their comfort, engagement, and happiness metrics read accordingly. From her seat, Fowl could monitor conscript brain wave and chemical levels, and every so often she'd give one of the Pilots a little dopamine hit via various available drugs when she noticed a metric like enthusiasm below tolerance.
She did this now to console the young woman who wept quietly for her tank which had been Hammered from orbit. Fowl also sent her a simple message consisting of three small images: tank, fire, facepalm. Cassandra, the weeping Pilot, immediately looked up from her terminal with an adoring smile and a glint in her sodden eyes. She mouthed the words Thank you, Admiral, to which Fowl silently replied, It's O.K. I love You. The Pilot made a little happy dance as she turned back to her workstation, ready to command one of the incoming support drones.
Those NROT scum don't appreciate the power of positive psychology, Fowl thought. "Get Her into the first Flutter in range, Commander."
"Yes, Admiral. We asked Air to send three but We're going to need more. Are You even watching this feed? Where is SigInt? Look at this shit!"
She noticed an icon on her display indicating a response from Intelligence. It was not good news. "They encountered a problem while attacking the satellite. Seems it's been updated and We are unable to disable it. Prepare immediately for an attack by Sol, Commander," Fowl ordered before giving Garrett the smallest dose of amphetamine.
"Yes, Admiral. Pilots! Assume formation delta and increase speed. In t-minus fifteen seconds switch to zeta patterns and follow the paths You are assigned. Cassandra, You're wing leader for Mark and Princess. Go after those Guards. They'll act as spotters here in a sec."
On the screen before her, Fowl watched the elegant chaos wrought by these orders play out. The twelve remaining Axes spread out from a phalanx into a roughly scattered grid, driving up voluminous clouds of dust as they sped full throttle to the facility. Gauges in the top-left corner showed the distance from Tango. One hundred and twenty-five miles. Range on the tank cannons was roughly fifteen miles. They still had a long way to go. Cassandra's wing was now engaging the Guards, their Flutter drones' wings extending and separating to form rotors as they shifted from high-speed to high-maneuverability flight. It would be difficult for the Pilots to hit their targets which were small, agile, and controlled by the most powerful machine intelligence in existence.
As Fowl communicated with SigInt to get an idea of what she should expect from Sol, her screen turned bright blue. She had never witnessed Sol in action, but had seen a few animations and some fairly scrambled footage from prior deployments. That would be the primer pulse, designed to modify the phase of molecules in the target area to ready them for a cascade